A warmly sympathetic biography of ``Ireland's Joan of Arc'': Maud Gonne (1866-1953), the agitator and legendary beauty best known today as the muse of William Butler Yeats and mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean MacBride. Of all the contradictions in Gonne's life, the biggest may have been that the woman who personified Mother Ireland in Yeats's nationalistic play Cathleen ni Houlihan was the British Protestant daughter of a Royal Army colonel. Outraged by the plight of starving Irish peasants, Gonne embarked on a lifelong crusade on behalf of the downtrodden and her adopted country's freedom. Ward (History/University of the West of England) is at her best in examining how Gonne overcame the sexism of male Irish republicans because of her wealth and charisma (in addition to being beautiful, she was a mesmerizing public speaker even as an octogenarian). Ward explains the activities that absorbed Gonne's considerable energy, including spying in Czarist Russia, lobbying for land reform, picketing royal visits to Dublin, founding the female nationalist group Inghinidhe na hEireann (Daughters of Erin), raising funds for Irish independence, participating in hunger strikes, and improving the lot of the poor and imprisoned. But the author isn't so successful in accounting for the other aspects of her heroine's public career and eccentric private life—failing to explain, for instance, why Gonne became the longtime mistress of a French right- winger. Ward also avoids criticizing Gonne's patriotically correct protests against plays by John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey, and her faith in astrology and mediums. A vivid if airbrushed narrative of a glamorous activist whose story begs for Hollywood treatment. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos- -not seen) (For more of Gonne, see The Gonne-Yeats Letters 1893- 1938, 1992, ed. by Anna MacBride White & A. Norman Jeffares.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-04-440889-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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