Epstein's third book of literary essays strikes a less polemical note than either Partial Payments (1989) or Plausible Prejudices (1985). Here, the American Scholar editor concentrates on writers for whom he feels a certain affinity, and proves an expert literary portraitist—if not a very dynamic critic. Epstein allows his interest in biography to overdetermine some of these pieces—his comments on a writer's work can seem perfunctory and mundane. At his best, he offers insights into a writer's career as evidence of ``the literary life,'' in which ``the experience of books has been integral with the experience of life.'' Epstein's notion that endless reading leads to ``skepticism about general ideas, systems, and theories'' pays off in appreciative portraits of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sidney Hook, and Sydney Smith. The author successfully draws attention to the neglected work of Italo Svevo, who created a masterpiece against all odds; to Desmond McCarthy, always on the verge of greatness; and to Maurice Baring, who deserves better than Edmund Wilson's faint praise. The most polemical piece here is a well-argued defense of Mencken against the charge of anti-Semitism. Cautionary tales are offered in fair-minded profiles of educational maverick Robert Hutchins, ``hack genius'' Ben Hecht, and once-overrated poet Carl Sandburg. Epstein's heroes include few surprises—George Orwell and Henry James—but his ``affinity'' for William Hazlitt seems based on nothing more than that both he and Hazlitt have been accused of writing ungrammatically, in a ``take-no-hostages'' style. In fact, Epstein's paean to those guardians of the language, Fowler and Gowers, includes a glaring lapse in grammar, as well as some of the very usages Fowler warns against. Epstein is a curious combination of tummler and Anglophile, leading to odd shifts in diction. His work lacks the wit and elegance of fellow New Criterion contributor Bruce Bawer (The Aspect of Eternity, p. 632), who otherwise shares the same commitment to common sense and readability.
Pub Date: Aug. 9, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-03519-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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