British writer Moorehead (Bertrand Russell, 1993, etc.) rounds out her sympathetic treatment of Heinrich Schliemann with the events leading to the recent rediscovery in Moscow of the Trojan treasures he unearthed. Both Schliemann's scholarly reputation as an archaeologist of the Mycenaean period and his legendary status as the discoverer of Homer's Troy have come under recent attack, just as his initial claims caused both furor and admiration. Although David Traill's iconoclastic biography, Schliemann of Troy (1996), meticulously sifted through his life to lay bare his misrepresentations and outright frauds, Moorehead is a steadfast, enthusiastic partisan. She grudgingly adds a few warts but does not dwell on them. Her loyalty is still to the legend of the grocer's-apprentice-turned- millionaire and self-made archaeologist who went in search of Troy. Although she notes his workaholic egomania, squabbles with colleagues, self-promoting reports, doctored journals, smuggling, and overimaginative and untrustworthy accounts of some of his findings, she glosses over them as venal sins in light of his groundbreaking work, not to mention the gold and silver artifacts he romantically attributed to Homeric heroes. Although by modern standards his methodology was mendacious and his digging technique more like strip-mining, there is no denying what his second wife and on-site helpmeet called his ``truffle-dog instincts.'' In a sensational and historically ironic pendant, Moorehead's investigation into the whereabouts of these treasures picks up with WW II, when the Berlin collection was looted by Soviet troops in retribution for the Nazis' cultural vandalism, and closes with the treasures' rediscovery by two Soviet art historians in 1990, to the embarrassment of the Minstry of Culture. (The treasures are currently on exhibit in Moscow.) In a fair trade-off for a good read, Moorehead bypasses recent unearthings of Schliemann's flaws in favor of a celebration of his inspiring achievements and a retracing of the convoluted trail of his legacy to the present day. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-670-85679-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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