translated by Carol Cosman & by Jean-Paul Sartre ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1987
The second volume of an ongoing translation of Satire's dense, immense biography and analysis of the young Flaubert. Sartre's thesis, expressed in highly complex format, is that Flaubert was something of a child genius, and that by reading the works of his extreme youth, the lover of his later works can recognize all of the future masterpieces, such as Madame Bovary, in embryo. This contradicts the pre-Sartreian belief that Flaubert was a late developer, in fact, the "family idiot." When such a complex text is translated, it should be asked for whom the job of Englishing is done. Even in English, Satire's arguments are sufficiently difficult to follow as to discourage the casual reader. Moreover, the interested investigator into Flaubert's early work had better know French, as almost none of it has been translated. Therefore, we are left with a large project that may well be of use to a limited number of scholars or either Sartre or of Flaubert. Otherwise, this fairly expensive volume cannot be tailed a "fun read" for those who are less deeply involved on a professional level. This caution slated, il is important lo stress that Cosman has continued her fluent job of translating what is occasionally an unfluent original. Despite his awkwardnesses of style, Sartre's is certainly one of the most stimulating recent works on Flaubert, largely because nothing embarrasses the critic. Even Flaubert's likely episodes of homosexuality in adolescence and later are given their full due here, with a description of a comrade's appreciating "the feminine charm emanating from Gustave's young body." The details of the carnal life of the novelist are only a part of the exceptionally thorough and all-inclusive approach that the author takes toward his fascinating subject. Illuminating, but more for specialists than for the general reader.
Pub Date: April 1, 1987
ISBN: 0226735192
Page Count: 646
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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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
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