Sisman draws inspiration from Boswell, exposing for the reader the inner mechanism of a masterpiece creation, and never...
Deconstructing Boswell’s classic Life of Johnson, former publisher Sisman reveals the process of making of this unique book and addresses fundamental questions about the nature of biography.
Sisman presents Boswell primarily in his role as friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. Born into a family of Scottish gentry, educated in law, and craving recognition as a writer, Boswell met the renowned author when he was 22, and this fateful meeting became a turning point in his life. Gradually, Johnson became for Boswell a means of making sense of his own life, of achieving popularity for himself in the glow shed by his celebrity friend, and of gaining access to the heart of London’s literary and artistic circles. Over the course of their 21-year relationship, Boswell and Johnson repeatedly met in London, traveled in Scotland together, and exchanged many letters. Although distressed by the fact that his mentor did not mention him in his will, Boswell nevertheless eagerly volunteered to be Johnson’s biographer after his death. He initially published his journal documenting their tour of the Hebrides, which was marked by a strikingly innovative, informal tone—as well as surprisingly coarse details. This new style of biographical writing culminated in 1791 with the monumental Life of Johnson. Sisman describes the many obstacles that arose on Boswell’s path toward the completion of this project: uncontrollable bouts of drinking, whoring, and gambling, the death of his wife, and the failure of his political career. Throughout the text, Boswell accorded his own persona an unabashedly prominent position beside his main subject. Overall, the Life was a success, but the same characteristics that made the book so entertaining also provoked criticism: Boswell was reprimanded by many a prudish biographer of the day for going overboard in exposing Johnson’s idiosyncrasies, slovenly behavior, and hot temper. Over time, however, such probing into the great author’s inner life elicited increasing appreciation, as Boswell’s new breed of biography took root in European letters.
Sisman draws inspiration from Boswell, exposing for the reader the inner mechanism of a masterpiece creation, and never hesitating to provide lurid details about Boswell himself.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-11561-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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