French poet and translator Daive recalls his friendship with post–World War II German poet Paul Celan (1920-1970).
This slim, elliptical memoir, a new edition of a work published in 2009 but subsequently out of print, consists of a series of fragments that barely cohere to create an alternately murky and evocative portrait of the relationship between two significant figures in French letters. Though Daive was born more than two decades after his mentor and subject, their poetry and translation work provided common bonds, particularly their shared obsession with how words work and language functions as well as the many limitations of spoken and written communication. The narrative follows them as they walk around Paris, in different seasons, over different years, often stopping for coffee, drinks, or a meal. The topics range widely but usually circle back to words, language, and storytelling—and later, to death, as Daive contemplates Celan’s 1970 suicide: how and when he threw himself into the Seine River and the magnitude of the aftershocks experienced by the author and those who knew both of them. “There were never any crossroads on our walks,” writes the author. “No halts I mean, exactly as if our promenade were part of a long ribbon without beginning or end, without collision and almost without witness. On the paving stones his step turns gentle: pure sound, muted sighs.” And so seems the conversation recollected in this diffuse narrative on poetry and philosophy, on Kafka and God, on the challenge and futility of using words to express what words cannot express: “The matter of words. Words as matter. Distance within logic.” Not for general readers, it’s a book that will appeal most to fans of either poet’s work and one that could find a home in courses on modern French literature. The book includes a new introduction by Robert Kaufman and Philip Gerard.
A dark, disjointed reading experience.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-87286-808-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: City Lights
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
Did you like this book?
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 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A refreshing celebrity memoir focused not strictly on the self but on a much larger horizon.
GET IT
One of Hollywood’s biggest stars delivers a memoir of success won through endless, relentless work and self-reckoning.
“My imagination is my gift, and when it merges with my work ethic, I can make money rain from the heavens.” So writes Smith, whose imagination is indeed a thing of wonder—a means of coping with fear, an abusive father with the heart of a drill instructor, and all manner of inner yearnings. The author’s imagination took him from a job bagging ice in Philadelphia to initial success as a partner in the Grammy-winning rap act DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Smith was propelled into stardom thanks to the ministrations of Quincy Jones, who arranged an audition in the middle of his own birthday party, bellowing “No paralysis through analysis!” when Smith begged for time to prepare. The mantra—which Jones intoned 50-odd times during the two hours it took for the Hollywood suits to draw up a contract for the hit comedy series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—is telling, for hidden within this memoir lies a powerful self-help book. For Smith, all of life is a challenge in which one’s feelings are largely immaterial. “I watched my father’s negative emotions seize control of his ample intellect and cause him over and over again to destroy beautiful parts of our family,” he writes, good reason for him to sublimate negativity in the drive to get what he wanted—money, at first, and lots of it, which got him in trouble with the IRS in the early 1990s. Smith, having developed a self-image that cast him as a coward, opines that one’s best life is lived by facing up to the things that hold us back. “I’ve been making a conscious effort to attack all the things that I’m scared of,” he writes, adding, “And this is scary.” It’s a good lesson for any aspiring creative to ponder—though it helps to have Smith’s abundant talent, too.
A refreshing celebrity memoir focused not strictly on the self but on a much larger horizon.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984877-92-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
