From literary nonfiction author and novelist Connell (Deus Lo Volt!, 2000, etc.), an idiosyncratic consideration of the groundbreaking Spanish artist.
Perhaps it is the violent lunacy of the world since 9/11, but Goya (1746–1828), creator of the Disasters of War etchings and of paintings depicting the brutal Napoleonic occupation of Spain, appears to be an artist for our time. Connell, who has addressed the hell at which we arrive by taking that road paved with good intentions in such nonfiction as Son of the Morning Star (1984), is the latest in a string of storytellers to tackle the Spanish master, following by mere months the publication of art critic Robert Hughes’s more conventional Goya (p. 1164). The author captures the contradictions and dangers inherent in being a member of the establishment during periods of serial oppression and liberation, with fanatical religion tossed into the mix. Though Connell always writes from a personal point of view, his prose here is oddly detached, considering the colorful subject matter. Frequent digressions sometimes lead to a fascinating tale of great—though not obvious— relevance; a whole chapter about Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War (and long after Goya’s death), recalling anti-Franco guerillas, fear of exposure, and torturous death, forcibly calls to mind both pre- and post-liberation Iraq, reminding us that Goya captured the grim, eternal ugliness of war. As an art historian, however, Connell leaves something to be desired. His constant speculation on the meaning of Goya’s work, and his basic incomprehension of pre-modern artistic conventions, might cause a specialist to gloss over parts of this. The absence of illustrations is likewise frustrating, given the viscerally pictorial nature of Goya’s art.
Well-crafted musings on living in violent and troubled times, using one of the greatest artists of that genre as a lens.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58243-307-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2003
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY
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