Dogs are not only our best chance of finding unconditional love, suggests Garber (Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Erotocism of Everyday Life, 1995) in this wry, literate study of dogs in human culture. They are also the repository of all those model human properties that, in our cynicism, we have ceased to find in each other. ``Dog love is local love, passionate, often unmediated, virtually always reciprocated, fulfilling, manageable. Love for humans is harder.'' Dogs have, says Garber, become the vehicle for our deepest feelings of love and loss, and manifest those qualities—courage, responsibility, loyalty, a sense of values—by which we measure ourselves, but which we rarely exhibit. Garber elaborates on this notion by delving into all manner of dog stories: Dickensian, Wordsworthian, and picaresque modes of dog biography; dogs as military heroes; dogs as Odyssean adventurers (Lassie); dogs as hearthkeepers (Odysseus's Argus). She notes what Descartes, Bentham, Dr. Johnson, Xavier Hollander, Shakespeare, and Virginia Woolf, among others, had to say on the subject, arguing that ``dog stories are universal narratives.'' Garber smartly charts the contested ground that separates human from canine, touching on dog psychology, neo-anthropomorphism, dogs and the law, and the social hierarchy of the stud book. And Garber, whose previous books have focused on the crossing of gender boundaries, delights, often hilariously, in the bisexuality of that unconditional love: Guy or gal, dog or bitch, both love it both ways. No good dog story would be complete without a foray into the realms of bestiality (``he'll never look surprised at something you ask him to do, never make you ashamed, and will never, never talk,'' Garber quotes one enthusiast as saying). Then Garber closes with a stirring chapter on dog loss and the human and canine experience of grief. Quick-witted and entertaining. A dog's life never seemed such a fair prospect. (b&w photos, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-81871-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
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
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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