Provocative and fascinating.
Esteemed English novelist Lodge (Home Truths, 2000, etc.) explores the relationship between consciousness and literature.
Intrigued by the way the very notion of consciousness seems to be evolving in an age of cyber and virtual reality, the author focuses here on a wide range of topics that offer perspective on consciousness in fiction. He discusses, among other things, recent theories of artificial intelligence, the historical give-and-take of literature and literary criticism, the timelessness of Dickens, and E.M. Forster’s juggling of the various English class-consciousnesses in his seminal novel Howard’s End. Delving into the recent popularity of filming Henry James’s fiction, Lodge reveals the disparity between James’s in-depth examination of human consciousness and the usually inadequate attempts to replicate it onscreen. He explores the work of the prominent American postwar authors John Updike and Philip Roth, with particular emphasis on Roth’s prolific body of work and daring (or reckless) plumbing of the depths of sexual consciousness. Lodge also provides an affectionate portrait of England’s father-and-son novelists Kingsley and Martin Amis (whose relationship was as special as it was famously troubled), and sympathetically assesses Experience, Martin’s account of the years in the mid-1990s when his father died and his marriage broke up, among other life crises. In a warm appraisal of Evelyn Waugh’s work, Lodge contrasts his own lower-middle-class origins in postwar England with the sparkling appeal of the glittering Brideshead Revisited cosmos, affectionately dissecting Waugh’s precise and unerring comic flair. Finally, Lodge describes the rationale behind one of his own recent novels, Thinks . . . (2001), in which he pursues the subject of consciousness in a fictional form. All of these pieces have the well-crafted tone of an assured master who knows writers and the business of writing extremely well. Lodge offers a kaleidoscopic adventure into the potentially forbidding realm of “consciousness studies,” sticking with familiar elements (well-known authors and books) and skillfully breaking his larger, more amorphous ideas into digestible bits.
Provocative and fascinating.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-674-00949-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
IN THE NEWS
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
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