Pallid, unconvincing portrait of the doyenne of the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood, the mid-Victorian art movement whose members—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, Holman Hunt—were as well known for their laudanum and license as for their innovative paintings. It seems to be true, as Jones (an English journalist) admits, that `` `finding' Christina as a person is not an easy task....'' Primary sources about the neurasthenic and sexually repressed Rossetti are in extremely short supply, and her earliest biographers seemed intent on canonization. Jones, however, generally accepts her subject's explanations for her actions at face value, neglecting the revelations that the application of modern psychology to Rossetti's behavioral patterns might have produced. Many readers will suspect deeper motivations for Rossetti's rejection of Charles Cayley as a suitor than the stated fact that Cayley did not belong to the Church of England. Jones also seems unaware of the sheer oddness of much of Rossetti's behavior: When, for instance, a contemporary points out that Rossetti was in the habit of picking up scraps of paper on the street ``in case they had the name of Jesus printed on them,'' the author allows the information to pass without comment. Jones seems most intent on reestablishing Rossetti's reputation as a major Victorian poet and as a kind of protofeminist; but except for the gothic ``Goblin Market,'' few of Rossetti's verses rise above clichÇd sentimentalism, and Jones's comparison of Rossetti's work to that of Emily Dickinson is truly far-fetched. The author is only slightly more successful in depicting her subject as a victim of male domination. If anything, Rossetti played the ``frail blossom'' for all it was worth, especially in relating to her long-suffering brother, William. Disappointingly short on both drama and insight. (Nineteen b&w illustrations.)
Pub Date: May 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-07017-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
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
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
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