In his biography of Jim Morrison (No One Here Gets Out Alive) and his own autobiography (Wonderland Avenue), Sugerman has previously waxed poetic about roads of excess leading to palaces of rock 'n'roll wisdom. Here, he revives his shaman's chant to celebrate the wanton drug binges of Axl Rose and his Guns 'N' Roses ensemble. Sugerman assumes numerous guises to express this book's ``fascinating and life-affirming experience.'' As literary historian, he makes countless facile comparisons between Rose and Plato, Blake, Poe, Hamlet, and even Joseph Campbell by citing the delirious rock idol as an archetypal ``trickster'' playing havoc with Judeo-Christian repression. As musical philosopher, he connects the Guns 'N' Roses beat to Nietzsche's insights about Dionysus and the sensuousness of Wagner. The intellectual slapstick intensifies when Sugerman becomes a cultural anthropologist, tracing all things cerebral and antinatural to European culture and all virtues of ``body, sex, and rhythm'' to ``Congo Square.'' Even Guns 'N' Roses takes a back seat to these ``larger'' arguments. Sugerman attempts some simplistic summaries of each band-member's life and background, but it seems he uses the band just as a gimmick to sell his rambling discourse. A mercifully brief kitsch hodgepodge, with 16 pages of color and b&w photographs of Rose and his pals Pied-Pipering away.
Pub Date: July 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05814-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1991
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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