An accessible biography that emphasizes the contradictions in Pushkin’s personality and how they contributed to his early death. In this bicentennial year of Pushkin’s birthe, the author establishes herself as a good synthesizer. While Feinstein’s (Lawrence and the Women: The Intimate Life of D.H. Lawrence, 1993) biography of Russia’s great literary figure is up-to-date on the latest research, it will serve as a readable and reliable English-language biography for the general public rather than a groundbreaking study for literary critics. Feinstein presents Pushkin’s life chronologically, from his birth and school days to his undoing in a dramatic duel and painful death. Chapters are concise and predictable. An introductory account of Russian imperial history falls into the trap of excessive shorthand, which leads to empty remarks such as the following about Peter the Great: he “unquestionably wanted to make Russia great.” From the start, Feinstein focuses on the juxtapositions within Pushkin’s personality and his various situations in life: his perception of himself as ugly and his pride in his African ancestry; his liberal political views and his unsolicited role as the tsar’s pet poet; his inheritance of his father’s love of gossip and society and his need for solitude for work; and his marriage to the beautiful young wife whose flirtations (if not infidelity) led to an eruption of Pushkin’s violent temper and the fatal duel that caused his death. For the general reader, Feinstein conveys some of the social complexity of Pushkin’s era and life at the royal court. She also makes a particular effort to make Pushkin’s works accessible and understandable in chapters that cover his most productive periods, offering excerpts to illustrate Pushkin’s creative genius. Feinstein’s Pushkin is a far more conventional biography than Serena Vitale’s recent Pushkin’s Button, with its marked imaginative flair and foundation of original research. But for the general reader with no knowledge of Russian, it offers a solid introduction to this literary giant. (8 b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: May 26, 1999
ISBN: 0-88001-674-4
Page Count: 309
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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