Take a grand tour through the Belle Époque without leaving your chair.
Count Harry Kessler’s diaries from 1880 to 1918 bring to life the many highly influential artists, royals and politicians who affected the 20th century in myriad ways. A German born in Paris and educated in England and Germany, he was fluent in all three languages by the time he was 18. Kessler knew and dined with all the major players of that period, including writers, sculptors, artists and the royalty of Germany. In this impressive translation and editing job (which includes copious footnotes), Easton (History/California State Univ., Chico, The Red Count: The Life and Times of Harry Kessler, 2002) depicts a voracious reader who, despite claiming that his interests were completely absorbed by art, still managed to capably discuss philosophy, politics, the classics and even the lovely little bits of court gossip. Kessler often mentions his very low impression of the Grand Duke who wished to control all the arts in Germany. In 1890, after viewing an exhibition of the Artistes Indépendents, he describes the “orgies of hideousness and nerve-shaking combinations of colors I thought impossible outside a madhouse.” Only two years later, Kessler became one of Ambroise Vollard’s best customers, and he couldn’t get enough of Cezanne, Monet, Degas and Renoir. Kessler also published travelogues. Reading his personal journals of his trips—particularly America, Greece and Fiesole, Italy, which he blissfully describes—will convince readers that they must journey there, book in hand, and see these wondrous sights. Kessler’s insightful views of the aesthetic freedom that art provides and of the need to reread books to gauge how much the reader has changed are just samples of his astute outlook. He illuminates the innocent world he inhabited in the years before the horrors of World War I destroy the last vestiges of intelligent “civilization.” A hefty tome that may prove daunting for some readers, but this is a classic book for the ages to keep and reread.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-26582-1
Page Count: 976
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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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