A perceptive, readable work of Laurentiana, though perhaps too late in its own right.
Well-crafted life of the once-famous (or infamous) writer who got much mileage out of shocking the bourgeoisie.
“How I hate the attitude of ordinary people to life,” David Herbert Lawrence grumbled, late in his short life. “How I loathe ordinariness! How from my soul I abhor nice simple people, with their eternal price-list.” Lawrence was the uncommon product of all-too-common stock, the child of an impoverished coal miner whose wife was certain that she had married beneath her station and instilled in Lawrence a recognition of the war between the sexes. He took that war all too literally, it seems; some of the more unpleasant moments of literary scholar Worthen’s careful biography concern Lawrence’s habit of hitting his partner in scandal, Frieda, and otherwise demeaning her (“ ‘Pull in your belly, you big bitch,’ an acquaintance was shocked to hear him say,” and that wasn’t the worst of it). Such moments do nothing to brighten Lawrence’s reputation when few people now read him anyway; “his reputation has fallen in the literary and academic worlds which, in the middle of the twentieth century, treated him as a great writer,” Worthen laments, adding that Lawrence is regularly suspected of being racist, sexist and fascist—but neglecting the possibility that modern readers might just find him musty, revolutionary though some of his work was in its time. For all the unpleasantness and, perhaps, minor status of his subject, however, Worthen does a fine job of reconstructing events in a timeline punctuated by the Lawrences’ roaming from one work-conducive backwater to another—Lake Como, Guadalajara, Santa Fe—only to have the rest of the world discover them in their wake, making such places unaffordable until Lawrence, near death, finally brought in enough income from the sale of his books to go where he wished, too late.
A perceptive, readable work of Laurentiana, though perhaps too late in its own right.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-58243-341-0
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
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
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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