A welcome, greatly expanded third edition of Gardner’s beloved critical edition of Carroll’s Victorian fairy tales. One of the longest ongoing love affairs in literature has to be that between Gardner, a prolific, popular writer on math and science, and Carroll’s ostensible children’s tales, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. With a dedication rare even among scholars, Gardner has tracked down origins and meanings of the wordplay and mathematical puzzles the sly Carroll embedded in his texts. He has also researched Charles Dodgson’s life and illuminated the two stories— sly parody of high Victorian culture. This new volume combines the notes from The Annotated Alice (1960) and More Annotated Alice (1990) with Gardner’s latest discoveries, offering both ardent fans of Carroll’s work and newcomers a chance to read the texts in the light of Gardner’s labors. The result is rather like sitting in on the creation of a work of art; the manner in which the shy mathematician and tutor Dodgson poured everything that fascinated him (children’s games, chess, mathematical riddles and logic, an amused view of Victorian literature and society) into the work by his alter ego Carroll is illuminated through Gardner’s lucid and copious notes. They run in a narrow (and surprisingly unobtrusive) column accompanying Carroll’s text on each page, turning the book into a fluid mix of Carroll and Gardner. The illustrations, by John Tenniel, also provide fertile ground for Gardner’s commentary. The notes are so clear, enthusiastic, and helpful that it is now hard to imagine Carroll without Gardner. A unique collaboration has produced, for once, a book that lives up to its name. As close to a definitive take on a classic work as anyone is likely to come.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-393-04847-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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