by Brian J. Boeck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2019
Boeck displays his wide range of knowledge of the Soviet Union and delivers an insightful, gripping, squirm-inducing...
Biography of Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984), winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in literature and a favorite of Joseph Stalin.
In his second book, Boeck (Russian and Soviet History/DePaul Univ.; Imperial Boundaries: Cossack Communities and Empire-Building in the Age of Peter the Great, 2009) works hard—and mostly successfully—“to reconcile the bold, uncompromising, and sympathetic Sholokhov…with the vindictive, mean-spirited man described in many accounts of late Soviet history.” Sholokhov was an obscure 21-year-old short story writer when he wrote his classic novel, And Quiet Flows the Don. Appearing serially in literary magazines from 1926 to 1940, the narrative tells the story of a Cossack family whose hero fights in World War I and the Russian Revolution. The first two volumes were bestsellers, but in 1930, his editor regarded further installments as insufficiently pro-revolutionary. Sholokhov refused to make changes but agreed to visit Maxim Gorky, the nation’s literary idol, to discuss the matter. To his amazement, the meeting included Stalin. Grilled on the controversy, Sholokhov satisfied Stalin, who considered himself a patron of the arts. He not only approved publication, but gave the author his personal secretary’s phone number. Almost immediately, Sholokhov witnessed Stalin’s murderous collectivization campaign and famine followed by the Terror, which devoured many colleagues. He appealed to Stalin, who freed several friends and sent food to his home district. Like naïve patriots throughout history, Sholokhov considered his ruler blameless but betrayed by evil underlings, and he remained a protégé, producing fawning speeches and writing that he struggled to repress after Stalin’s death. By the 1960s, he enjoyed international celebrity but wrote little of consequence, and his privileged status and literary conservatism did not endear him to the younger generation.
Boeck displays his wide range of knowledge of the Soviet Union and delivers an insightful, gripping, squirm-inducing portrait of a great author who loyally served his government—perhaps too loyally.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68177-874-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Share your opinion of this book
by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.