Veteran teacher, writer, and editor Rubin (The History of Southern Literature, 1985, etc.) offers up a collection of essays on American literature that at their best—which is most of the time—have a refreshing authority and appeal. Least persuasive are Rubin's attempts to find the elusive ingredient (if there is one) that's unique to Southern literature; in his essays on Faulkner, for example, he's eloquent on the genius of the author's achievement in fiction, but less commanding on what makes him ``Southern.'' When Rubin takes up topics for their own sake, however, rather than to support an inherited thesis, he scores one discerning and gratifying success after another. ``The Mockingbird in the Gum Tree'' shows how the vernacular style (after Mark Twain) finally made American literature not merely European- imitative but ``able to say what it thinks.'' Effortlessly blending criticism with his own experiences as a young man, Rubin clarifies the success and the failure of Thomas Wolfe; both sears and honors the once-influential writer and critic Bernard DeVoto; and creates a memoir and evaluation of Robert Penn Warren that one wishes wouldn't come to an end. Without cant, ideology, or high-tech jargon, Rubin takes up the world of American letters and argues wonderfully for the life that's in it—in showing the idealist's despair under H.L. Mencken's crabby surface (``The Mencken Mystery''); in taking Alfred Kazin to task (this side idolatry) for his New York parochialism (``Alfred Kazin's American Procession''); in showing Joseph Epstein how to be fruitfully negative about literary culture instead of just programmatically so ``(Mr. Epstein Doesn't Like It''); and in defending the humane legacy of the New Criticism against the doctrinal ravages of what we now call post- structuralism and deconstructionism (``Tory Formalism, New York Intellectuals, and the New Historical Science of Criticism''). A biographical memoir closes the volume. Its roots in the soil, astute criticism that won't stoop to abandon literature for theory. A book for anyone, say, who seriously wants to become an American writer.
Pub Date: Oct. 18, 1991
ISBN: 0-8071-1680-7
Page Count: 281
Publisher: Louisiana State Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1991
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
