Another solid addition to the series in which the author brings the seriousness his subject deserves.
An analysis that goes deeper than most into the metaphysical vision of comics pioneer Stan Lee (1922-2018).
In the latest volume in the publisher’s Jewish Lives series, Leibovitz necessarily focuses on Lee’s essential Jewishness and indicates that his life and legacy deserve academic scrutiny. As an author and commentator who works closely with many Jewish media outlets (he is a senior editor at Tablet) and who has previously published on Jewish subjects, he has the right credentials for the subject. Most importantly, however, Leibovitz brings to the project a deep love for—and knowledge of—the comic-book world that Lee created and how that world impacted popular culture and vice versa. With Marvel Studios now dominating the movie industry, one is less likely to underestimate the popular reach of Spider-Man or the Avengers, but Leibovitz argues that most are missing the big picture, that even serious scholarly attention has been “focusing on history and sociology but rarely on philosophy and theology.” The author’s analysis is not exactly an introduction or a primer, and it will most satisfy those who are already well versed in the Marvel universe, the Talmud, and the cultural and political upheavals that so profoundly impacted the thematic progression of Lee’s empire. Leibovitz wants readers to recognize the cultural parallels between comic books and rock ’n’ roll, to see Lee as a kindred spirit with “another gnomic Jewish artist, Bob Dylan,” and to see how “his comic books, like Dylan’s songs, have become vast cultural canvasses onto which anyone interested in the art form can paint his or her own interpretations, an ongoing dialogue with the artist that mirrors the ancient Talmudic logic of constant conversation and disputation.” The author also touches on Lee’s gift for self-mythologizing and the charges that, as a collaborator, he has taken more credit than is his due.
Another solid addition to the series in which the author brings the seriousness his subject deserves.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23034-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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