A learned, eye-opening survey of the “mixed style” that shaped a nation’s culture and self-image. (70 pp. color and b&w...
A vast and rich panorama encompassing English literature, philosophy, science, art, and music.
Holding together a narrative of such ambition is a Herculean task, and British biographer/novelist Ackroyd (London, 2001, etc.) occasionally falters. For instance, he never fails to signal that A Big Theme is coming, e.g.: “In the course of this narrative it will be demonstrated that English literature, in particular, borrowed elements and themes from continental texts only to redefine them in the native style.” Nor is he averse to sending readers to the closest dictionary with words such as “hypnagogic” or “oneiric.” Ultimately, though, he’s saved by his erudition and panache, as he details how, starting with the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, the predominant strains of the English sensibility have been assimilation and adaptation. From Chaucer to Dickens, the polyglot culture of London encouraged creators to mix high and low, comedy and tragedy, sacred and profane, he writes. In a particularly fascinating section on how literature borrowed and blended elements from different sources, Ackroyd underscores the crucial impact of translation on the nation’s letters, not only through the King James Version of the Bible, but through Thomas Wyatt, Christopher Marlowe, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Wordsworth, whose poems were influenced by those they translated. Loss also figures in the English imagination, from the death of Arthur through the often melancholy strains of Ralph Vaughn Williams. Though most comfortable with literature, Ackroyd also verges afield with brio to analyze the national vogue for miniatures, gardening, and landscape painting. He can masterfully weave a creator’s life and work together, then summarize it with a pithy one-liner, as when he describes John Donne as “a disciple of death and a voluptuary of decay.”
A learned, eye-opening survey of the “mixed style” that shaped a nation’s culture and self-image. (70 pp. color and b&w illustrations)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-49772-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
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
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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