Astonishingly moronic and self-absorbed.
A tiresome collection of episodes from their days living in southern Tuscany, from Leavitt (Martin Bauman, 2000, etc.) and Mitchell (Virtuosi, not reviewed).
Leavitt and Mitchell purchased a dilapidated farmhouse in south-central Italy in 1997, and for nearly 200 pages they subject us to some random stories about the place and their life there. It is a beautiful, unspoiled spot, a hilltop of olive and fruit trees and sloping pastures, a skyline of villages in a surrounding of Etruscan memories. This is still farm and ranch land, and much of the rest is given over to a national park where wild boar, chamois, and roebuck abide. Too bad, then, that in most of these quick chapters, the authors prefer to prattle on about closet space or coo over fixtures: the stair railings they had made, for example, were “a design copied from a terrace on a crumbling building in the Monti neighborhood of Rome.” They can be painfully coy (“Isn’t the whole point of living in Italy, though, to try to live—although one knows that one cannot—in a fairy tale?”) when they aren't ladling out their own vacuous brand of social analysis (“Is it any wonder that this country is so corrupt, when men are taught by their mothers that everything good in the world is theirs by right?”). The rare passages of smooth prose (“the land is like an actress: it always shows itself from its best angle”) are buried beneath a sea of dross (“People assume that to live in Italy is necessarily more expensive than to live in America. This is and isn’t true: some things are more expensive, while others are less”). And tales about the color of Mitchell's pants or why they choose not to use a clothes dryer are remarkable only in their banality.
Astonishingly moronic and self-absorbed.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58243-016-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
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
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
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