An autobiography in brief, as well as a supremely rewarding text on acting, by the always brooding, green-eyed black actor today best known as the voice of Darth Vader and the steely, saturnine voice of New Jersey Bell. Niven (Carl Sandburg, 1991) worked with Jones for four years on this project, which the thesbian seems to write entirely in his own voice. Jones apparently didn't start out to write a text on acting and perhaps doesn't think of this as such, but budding actors shouldn't leave home without it. Knowing Jones's work, we wait somewhat impatiently for him to get through his early days on the Mississippi farm where he was born and raised and into the exciting worlds of stage and film. But those early days are Jones. Parted from his father and mother and raised by his grandparents, he began to stutter as a child, then fell into a muteness that lasted until a high-school teacher had him read a poem aloud and he found that he could read fluently from a text. What's more, his awakened voice had deepened. (The muteness may account for the great intensity of Jones's listening when he acts.) He spent a decade playing innumerable roles Off-Broadway and in regional theater before his breakthrough with Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park troupe. Long enthralled by Othello, he has played the role in many productions, each of which he analyzes here for new ideas about who the Moor is and how to play him. Best moments overall include the lessening in scope and power of The Great White Hope from Washington to Broadway to film; the difficulty of wrestling a better text out of Angus Wilson for Fences; and stone-sucking thoughts about Jones's feelings and passions in his various roles. A star is born among the classics on acting. (Three eight-page photo inserts—not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 13, 1993
ISBN: 0-684-19513-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
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
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