A fresh promontory from which to view the marvelous and mysterious Shakespearean sea.
Yoshino (Constitutional Law/NYU School of Law; Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, 2006) argues that the Bard advanced complex notions about justice, which remain enduringly relevant and deserve to be revisited.
The narrative structure is roughly chronological (the author begins with the early Titus Andronicus and ends with The Tempest) and covers most of the major plays of the canon—The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Othello, the “Henriad” (Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV, Henry V), Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. Each chapter features an exegesis of the play and, usually, a look at a contemporary issue in the light of Shakespeare’s views. Throughout, Yoshino’s liberal political positions are prominent. He sees in that most sanguinary revenge play Titus, for example, a distant mirror of our mistakes in Iraq. In Portia’s hair-splitting at the end of Merchant, he sees analogies to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. In Othello, he finds Shakespearean help in understanding the O.J. Simpson murder trial. George W. Bush may initially have seemed like young Prince Hal, but unlike Henry V, Bush failed to win his Agincourt. Most interesting are the author’s views on Hamlet. He praises the prince’s temporizing, viewing it as an intellectual’s attempt to be certain before acting, but he condemns him for a fierce focus that ignores the deleterious consequences on others. The author also pauses occasionally to remark upon some enduring issues in Shakespeare’s biography. How did he know so much about the law? (Well, he knew a lot about everything.) Is there a Macbeth curse? (Of course not.) Yoshino also takes a contrary view of Portia (“her rhetorical skill,” he says, “should inspire misgiving”) and thinks Cordelia might have been just plain inarticulate.
A fresh promontory from which to view the marvelous and mysterious Shakespearean sea.Pub Date: April 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-176910-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
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
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