An informed mind and heart, a generous spirit—these are the human qualities that emerge on virtually every page of this...
An eclectic, entertaining and shelf-bending collection of essays, memoirs, introductions, diaries and commentary from the noted English actor, playwright and art-lover.
In his introduction, Bennett (Writing Home, 1995, etc.) alludes to the colon cancer he battled in the late 1990s, and he concludes this massive and moving anthology with an essay about that experience—one of the strongest of many strong pieces. He quips, “Sometimes I felt that more people had seen the inside of my bum than had seen some productions at the National Theatre.” This appealing self-deprecation is a hallmark of Bennett’s prose, including his opening essay, a long piece about a number of his relatives—but with a sharp focus on the mental deterioration of his mother. Bennett also writes about his first awareness that he was gay (including a touching moment with his father, who asks, “You’re not one of them, are you?”). Bennett includes segments from his diary (1996–2004), with comments on the deaths of many of his friends and coevals—among them, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, John Schlesinger and Alan Bates. He comments, as well, on the death of Princess Di, 9/11, the Iraq War (which he despises). There are a couple of very compelling sections about the plays he’s written (for stage, radio, film and television), and some essays about another of his loves—paintings. (In his diary, he chronicles visits to galleries all over the world.) There’s also an interesting text of a speech in which he identifies four paintings that ought to hang in every English school. Bennett loves the poetry of Philip Larkin, and that poet’s name and words pop up frequently in these pages. Among the best pieces is “Staring Out of the Window,” a brief, lucid essay about writing. Another very strong and troubling essay deals with a physical assault he suffered in 1992.
An informed mind and heart, a generous spirit—these are the human qualities that emerge on virtually every page of this splendid collection.Pub Date: April 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-28103-3
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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