A masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play’s “endless wonders.”
A wise inquiry into an “erotic and yet transcendent” play.
The uber-prolific Bloom (Humanities/Yale Univ.; Falstaff: Give Me a Life, 2017, etc.) now has his own book series: Shakespeare’s Personalities. The first book explored Prince Hal’s loyal friend, Falstaff, one of the Bard’s most complex characters. Bloom continues to instruct and entertain with this in-depth look at the “most seductive woman in all of Shakespeare,” the Egyptian queen who describes herself as “fire and air.” Bloom fell in love with actress Janet Suzman’s portrayal of Cleopatra in 1974, and her image “lingers” with him still. In 1607, just one year after Macbeth premiered, Antony and Cleopatra was first performed. “Without the fierce sexuality that Cleopatra both embodies and stimulates in others,” writes Bloom, “there would be no play.” As usual, the author expects a lot of his readers as he meticulously provides a close reading, quoting extensively as he examines the text. For him, the play is “a brilliant kaleidoscope, a montage of shifting fortunes, places, personalities, excursions into the empyrean.” Shakespeare’s Cleopatra “beguiles and she devastates,” and “no one else in Shakespeare is so metamorphic.” She is “radiant” at age 39 and instantly puts “Antony’s heart in her purse.” Bloom loves to ponder over certain words—e.g., Cleopatra’s use of the “rich” word “oblivion” or the subtle “sexual implication” of “Do.” The “law” of her personality—“ebb, flow, ebb, return”—is about renewal and vitality, while Antony’s is “ebb, flow, ebb, and do not return.” Bloom often references other Shakespearean characters as he delves into what makes Cleopatra, Antony, Octavius Caesar, and other characters tick. His discussion of Shakespeare’s “unique mastery at portraying the art of dying” is especially fascinating.
A masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play’s “endless wonders.”Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6416-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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