It's a tall order to follow up what is, in effect, a definitive work, but Leibovitz delivers a different sort of biography...
A slightly different look at rock royalty.
Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is one of rock's most polarizing figures. Those who love him do so rabidly and will soak up every morsel of music (or prose or poetry) that the baritone-voiced artist releases. One can assume that's also the case with biographies, since less than two years after Sylvie Simmons' phenomenal I'm Your Man was published, here comes another study of the revered Canadian troubadour. Though Tablet writer Leibovitz (co-author: Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization, 2011, etc.) doesn’t add much new material to the Cohen biographical canon, his approach is certainly different than that of Simmons; it's considerably more academic. Religion was (and is) among Cohen's pet topics about which to write, and Leibovitz follows suit, at times even quoting the Bible to illuminate a concept. In one instance, he pulls a line from the book of Romans in a discussion about the Doors, noting, "The New and Old Testaments alike are books of waiting; the humans who populate them speak of salvation and cataclysm, but more than anything they linger in anticipation for God to act." That sort of academic verbiage permeates the discussions of Cohen's relationship with Judaica. On the plus side, Leibovitz's research and sources are impeccable, and there are plenty of good anecdotes to lighten up what could have been a dry study of this important performer. In an account of a 2008 performance, Leibovitz writes: “In true Zen fashion, it turned out that all he needed to do to let his songs state their case was nothing but accept Lorca’s definition of duende and allow the tightly closed flowers of his spare arrangements bloom into a thousand petals.”
It's a tall order to follow up what is, in effect, a definitive work, but Leibovitz delivers a different sort of biography that Cohen fanatics should appreciate.Pub Date: April 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-393-08205-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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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