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
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
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
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