For readers craving a one-night stand with American letters, this is satisfying; for a more enduring relationship, look...
American literature in fewer than 200 pages? Fasten your seatbelts.
Hayes (English/Univ. of Central Oklahoma; The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, 2008) invites us aboard a runaway train careening through the literature of America, zigzagging from Capt. John Smith to Jonathan Franzen. The journey is chronological only within chapters; the organization otherwise is by genre. His first full sentence is the thesis: “American literature is about identity.” Like any similar volume, this one has all the virtues—and failures—of brevity. There is comfort in a simple thesis, surely, though it invites readers to wonder how Hamlet and much of the rest of British literature is not about identity. Hayes’ chapter topics (travel narrative, biography, short story, poetry, drama and the novel) offer a sensible set of destinations, but more literary readers will wonder why some of their favorite writers—Phillis Wheatley, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Kate Chopin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sam Shepard and other luminaries—are either not here at all or are confined to a clause or phrase. Hayes occasionally pauses to consider a single work, some of which are no-brainers (Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, The Great Gatsby), some mere head-scratchers (Melville’s poem “Donelson,” Louis Armstrong’s Swing That Music). The author also includes some writers few will know—e.g., Josiah Gregg, James Lane Allen, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. Hayes' grasp of American literary history is impressive, though not flawless. He writes that As I Lay Dying is told by “several different characters”; there are actually 15.
For readers craving a one-night stand with American letters, this is satisfying; for a more enduring relationship, look elsewhere.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-986206-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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