by Gustave Flaubert & George Sand ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 1993
A charming exchange between two extraordinary writers, from 1866 to 1876, with an illuminating introduction and continuity provided by Steegmuller (A Woman, A Man, and Two Kingdoms, 1991, etc.). Her translation (assisted by Barbara Bray) captures all of the qualities that led Alphonse Jacobs (who edited the French edition, on which this one is based) to conclude that this may be the finest correspondence of all time. When Flaubert began writing to Sand, she was 62 years old and 17 years his senior; a successful author and playwright; a grandmother with a scandalous past that included affairs with Chopin and Musset; a woman possessed of an independent spirit and an insouciant attitude. Flaubert was past the scandals of Madame Bovary, living in seclusion in Croisset with his aging mother and niece, periodically going to Paris to debauch with his literary friends. Along with their respective preferences and pleasures, families, travels, religion, and politics, the writers discuss their aesthetic principles: Sand scolds Flaubert for ``annihilating'' himself in his literature; for his misanthropic attitudes; for his obsession with form; and for his elitism, writing for ``only twenty intelligent people.'' The younger author defends himself, tactfully praises the many works Sands sends him (although, in truth, he dislikes her writing), and objects to her populism, her optimism, her subjectivity. The letters are flirtatious, even passionate, full of embraces and vows of love, but mostly Sand remains ``chäre maåtre adorable''—more a teacher than a lover, criticizing and affirming—while Flaubert is her ``troubadour'' whose self-deprecation brings out her most nurturing self. Caring, private, revealing: a treasure of friendship and a rare exchange enriched by the careful participation of Steegmuller- -more a tactful mediator than an editor—who has turned the correspondence into a work of art.
Pub Date: Feb. 10, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-41898-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992
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More by Gustave Flaubert
BOOK REVIEW
by Gustave Flaubert translated by Lydia Davis
BOOK REVIEW
by Gustave Flaubert & translated by Andrew Brown
by Ozzy Osbourne with Chris Ayres ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 25, 2010
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
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IN THE NEWS
by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
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
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