Occasionally smug, but attentive and well-composed.
The author of Composing a Life (1991) urges older readers to use their wisdom and energy to shape a further meaningful life and to engage with and contribute to society.
Bateson (Arabic Language Handbook, 2003, etc.), a visiting scholar at the Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College, argues that the extension of the human life span in the past century does not mean an extension of old age but rather a longer period of adult life. Adding to psychoanalyst Erik Erikson’s eight life-cycle stages, she looks at a new period of extended vitality that she calls “Adulthood II,” an age of “active wisdom.” To explore the contributions of individuals in Adulthood II, Bateson recorded conversations with a variety of men and women who have reached this stage. Among them are a former Maine boat-yard worker turned jewelry maker in Arizona; an activist who founded several nonprofit organizations; a gay music teacher who works with autistic children; a retired cathedral dean who set up an interfaith center; and a white lawyer who started a journal of blacks in higher education. With Jane Fonda, the author discusses the relationship of age and spirituality, providing a portrait of the actress that contrasts sharply with the popular images of her as radical Vietnam war protester or beautiful exercise queen. The stories provide examples of people dealing with transitions in their lives, finding strategies to deal with new conditions and relationships, figuring who they are and what they want. The conversations, which have been largely crafted into essays, are not only lengthy but two-way, with Bateson including numerous details from her own interesting life. Her takeaway message is that the rich past experiences of those in Adulthood II can lead to the composition of a still-productive life and that older adults, now relatively free from daily responsibilities, can combine their wisdom with energy and commitment to have a positive effect on society.
Occasionally smug, but attentive and well-composed.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-26643-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
What we've all been awaiting: the first of Hemingway's posthumous works he began in 1958 and finished in 1960. This is a memoir of his expatriate days in the twenties, and MacLeish's little poem about the young man with the panther good looks who whittled a style for his times in the sawmill attic in Paris comes to life here. What also comes to light is the "inside story," or the very personal revelations, parts of whicy may become a cause scandale. Not only is the Fitzgerald portrait ungenerous, but the disclosures of his sexual difficulties with Zelda are embarrassing. Miss Stein is also victimized, and there are allusions to puzzling perversities. Pound, Ford, Eliot, Lewis and Joyce are around and they are treated with affection, or affectionate malice. The best passages are the descriptive ones— fine writing with all the supple surety of Sun— of bookstalls, cafes, streets, the Seine, race tracks, and travel. And of course there's Hemingway on his wife Hadley, and Hemingway on Hemingway..... Mary McCarthy's famous attack on Salinger scored him for following Papa's special club of OK people (like him) versus the "others" (unlike him). The memoir has something of that snobbery and certain people may go after it accordingly. Still, whatever the indiscretions, it is an important work, a literary source from a master. There can be little doubt of its interest and attraction for many as a reprise of a now legendary time when Hemingway was young and happy and "invulnerable," and a place— well, "There is never any ending to Paris.
Pub Date: May 5, 1964
ISBN: 0684833638
Page Count: 207
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1964
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment.
A cocky bad boy of finance recalls, in much detail and scabrous language, his nasty career as a master of his own universe.
At a young age, in an industry with many precocious bandits, Belfort ran a Long Island–based brokerage with the deceptively WASP-y name of Stratton Oakmont. It was a bucket shop habitually engaged in crooked underwritings. Its persuasive boss was a stock manipulator and tax dodger; he details the stock kiting, share parking, money laundering and customer swindles. Many millions poured in, and cash brought with it excess upon excess. Along with compliant women and copious drugs, there were multiple mansions, many servants, aircraft, yachts and, for all the guys on the trading floor, trophy wives. Among his under-the-table and beneath-the-sheets activities, the author’s most imperative seemed to be sex and dope-taking, despite his professed abiding love for his (now ex) wife and kids. Belfort’s portrait of his family is vivid, as is his depiction of the merry cast of supporting players: sweet Aunt Patricia, a Swiss forger, evil garmentos, Mad Max (Stratton’s CFO and his father). The melodrama covers coke snorting, Quaalude eating, kinky sex, violence, car wrecks, even a sick child and a storm at sea. “A cautionary tale,” the author calls it. It is crass, certainly, and vulgar—and a hell of a read. Belfort displays dirty writing skills many basis points above his tricky ilk. His chronicle ends with his arrest for fraud. Now, with 22 months in the slammer behind him, he’s working on his next book.
Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-553-80546-8
Page Count: 522
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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