by Lincoln Kirstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1994
This memoir by the octogenarian Kirstein (Portrait of Mr. B, 1984) displays a Proustian sensibility in its wholesale allegiance to art and the senses and in its nostalgic tableau vivant of times and places past. From its astonishing, sensual opening sentence (``The pear was plump, ripe, juicy, palm jade''), this is the story of the education of Kirstein's aesthetic sensibility and its fulfillment in his most lasting achievement, the founding of the New York City Ballet. Despite its revealing tone, it is not intimate (due partly to sometimes stuffy prose), yet it is almost always engaging. This self-portrait shows the young Kirstein to be by turns charming and expansive, self-deprecating and confused as he learns that, contrary to his hopes, he is not destined to be an artist. Kirstein is the son of German Jews who penetrated the upper reaches of Boston society. Gifted with what he calls ``nervous energy'' and a wealthy, supportive papa, the self-described hedonist pursues his artistic and amorous fancies from Harvard to Paris to New York City. The strange highlights of Kirstein's life shine through: An encounter with the mystic Gurdjieff is at once chilling and comic; pursuing the low life, Kirstein conceives an unrequited love for a gritty sailor. The chapters dealing with Kirstein's precocious founding of Hound & Horn and the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art are oddly devoid of passion; but the grand spectacle of his life, narrated in this volume's last chapter, begins in 1933. In Paris, where he seeks out the ballet, the intrigues and jealousies of artists, dancers, and stage mothers are topped only by the supreme wiles of Romola Nijinsky, in whose service Kirstein finds himself. Kirstein, now an impresario-in-training, courts George Balanchine, hoping he will found a ballet school and company—in Hartford, Connecticut. Of course, a Balanchine-led Hartford Ballet was not to be. One hopes that Kirstein's elliptical ending is the promise of another volume to complete his colorful mosaic.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-374-21336-4
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lincoln Kirstein
BOOK REVIEW
adapted by Lincoln Kirstein & illustrated by Alain Vaës
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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
Share your opinion of this book
by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
BOOK REVIEW
by Jon Krakauer
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.