This encounter of scientific optimism and poetic pessimism has a 'ships that pass in the night' quality. Momentary illuminations flicker and fade into a jumble of psychological, historic, scientific and personal observations, intuitions and forebodings punctuated by assurances that Jimmy and Margaret at least can communicate and this is surely a GOOD THING. Ranging from New Guinea to Harlem to Paris and back again in search of psychohistorical as well as racial identities ("The one thing you really ought to be allowed to choose is your ancestors"), both look with dismay at the anti-historical, revolutionary romanticism of the kids: "To the extent that he doesn't have any past, he's trapped in it." Baldwin admits to difficulties in identifying with black Africans, dashikis and Afro haircuts. Keeping up with the changing language is a problem — "Have you learned to say Chicano yet?" Mead looks forward to the end of archaic institutions and to civilization run on a rational, planetary basis; Baldwin is still haunted by the fire next time and doubts whether Mr. Charlie can relinquish his hegemony without precipitating Armageddon. The suspicion that "what we call racism would seem to be endemic in human nature" is dangled and dropped and the subject of miscegenation is never raised. Neither a confrontation nor a meeting of minds, this is only occasionally right on.
Pub Date: May 24, 1971
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
