GILBERT GREEN--THE REAL RIGHT WAY TO DRESS FOR SPRING

by Fredrick Ted Castle ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1986

Darting, course-changing, and occasionally profound, as was Castle's Anticipation (1984), this book (like the other, written in the 60's, published only now) is leaden, nondiscriminating, droning, and without anything but a conceptual intelligence--a literary equivalent to a film such as Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girl, a monument to the 60's fashion of ""depressed"" art. Gilbert Green is a songwriter/moviemaker/general celebrity (the resemblance to Warhol is candidly admitted by Castle in a postscript). The book trains its dulling eye on him (and his songs) while letting walk in front of its camera, friends of his and his wife, Susan. It's Susan, presumably, who'll give us something a little bit under the surface, something born from knowledge of the man she's married to; but instead there's this kind of thing: ""The most beautiful thing about Gilbert Green was undoubtedly his hair, it was so soft, and so long, and so full, and so generally well-behaved, and it even sometimes developed a beautiful wave in it depending on whether the relative humidity was up or down, I forget which."" A smattering of downtown NY art-scene atmospheres and names, a late lurch at a plot involving marijuana dealing by one of Gilbert Green's friends--and still it adds up to an inert exercise in communal narcissism. Read Anticipation if you want in on Castle at his quirky best.

Pub Date: April 28, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McPherson

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION