Troyat—Russian-born member of the French Academy and prolific biographer of Russian writers (Gorky, 1989, etc.) and rulers (Peter the Great, 1987, etc.)—now offers an intimate and appreciative biography of Flaubert (1821-80). Born into a family of surgeons, Flaubert by adolescence was six-foot tall, exceptionally beautiful, sensitive yet cynical, and preoccupied with himself, with writing, and with women—whom he associated with either ideal romance or a vulgar sexuality. After failing law school, he suffered a seizure and took refuge in Croisset, a small village outside of Rouen, where he lived as a writer with his mother and his niece, who was taken in as an infant when his sister died in childbirth. Flaubert alternated periods of solitude—during which he wrote such masterpieces as Madame Bovary and A Sentimental Education—and travel to Paris, Egypt, and Turkey. Following a long, tempestuous affair (explicit letters stemming from it were published in 1926 by his niece), Flaubert claimed to be ``weary of grand passion.'' He withdrew emotionally, although he cultivated a large circle of devoted male literary friends with whom he shared ``monstrous debauches'' in Paris, and he befriended George Sand, with whom he shared his holidays and much of his private life. However sensitive, peaceful, and private by nature he may have been, however, Flaubert worked as a nurse and, later, as a lieutenant during the Prussian invasion of France in 1870, during which he adapted even to the German occupation of his study. Troyat's strength lies in his appreciation of the many contradictions in the creative personality, and in his mastery of clear exposition—even where more literary and psychological analysis might be desirable. The great weakness here is the awkward translation, especially inappropriate for stylists such as Troyat and Flaubert himself. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-84450-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
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
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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