The overall effect is somewhat slight and rather disjointed, but not without attraction.
Seven essays by novelist Byatt (The Biographer’s Tale, 2000, etc.), all ostensibly linked by the motifs of writing and reading fiction set in the past.
Byatt is at her best in the three opening essays (“Fathers,” “Forefathers,” and “Ancestors”), originally given as concurrent lectures. Taking Salmon Rushdie to task for his oft-quoted assertion that the British novel after WWII was moribund and in desperate need of infusions of vigor from its former colonies, Byatt adamantly refutes the image of the postwar UK novel as terminally cozy, unambitious, and genteel—making the case for a lively, postwar British canon with such authors as Muriel Spark, Anthony Burgess, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Jeanette Winterson at its center. Subsequent chapters broaden the discussion to include the works of European writers, a few Americans, and the now properly chastised ex-colonial Rushdie. An essay on literary scholarship and Byatt’s own Angels and Insects (1993) has some further relevance here; another, on images of ice and glass in poetry and prose, does not. Wrapping it all up is a perfunctory quickie on storytelling in general and A Thousand and One Nights in particular. The tone throughout these pieces remains consistent: eager, polite, informed, rushed. Not the least of the pleasures provided is that of having a respected writer reel off the names of some books she quite fancies (followed by a cursory description and a brief sentence or two of lavish praise)—a service that ultimately offers more to a reader looking for something new to pick up than to one wishing for either critical insight or the coherent investigation of the literary trends and strategies (as the title would seem to promise).
The overall effect is somewhat slight and rather disjointed, but not without attraction.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-674-00451-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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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