Garner begins his brief introduction by naming his subject, The Fool in folklore-but this is no collection of numbskull tales, though a few such anecdotes are included. To Garner, the Guizer (the name refers to an actor in a mumming play) is not only fool—and trickster as well, but, in his various incarnations—arranged here in evolutionary sequence—no less than animal instinct, demiurge, culture hero, and "the dawning godhead in man." Gardner's broad interpretation of the "fool" concept is reflected too in the variety of the tales collected here from world folklore—it is hard to imagine what folk tale would not fit his view of the subject—and, considering the bare minimum of commentary (the two-page introduction and brief appended notes on sources, changes, and problems of translation), sometimes hard to see how those that are here specifically fit the scheme. As an aid, Garner divides the selections into three sections—on the Guizer as Fool, Man, and God—though in some of the episodes the Ashanti Anansi, featured in the first, and the Winnebago Hare, who ends the last, seem much alike. What is clear is Garner's exclusive interest in a universal psychology ("everywhere the myth is the same") as distinguished from cultural anthropology. Only in the notes (which toss off words like "apotropaic" and "theriomorphic") is the cultural origin of each tale identified, and even there readers will find no hint as to who Finn and the Fianna are, though they are subjects of two of the tales in part one. But, in Garner's words, "the book is an entertainment rather than a thesis," and—though it might better have been expanded into a thesis—his versions are both entertaining and closer to their beginnings than you are likely to find in collections for young people. And if readers can't always be expected to follow Gamer's train of thought, he well might prod them to speculation of their own.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1976
ISBN: 068886001X
Page Count: 213
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1976
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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