Those with an endless interest in English art movements of the ’60s may find Bracewell’s work endlessly fascinating. Anyone...
Laborious exploration of a great English rock band’s art-school roots.
British novelist and cultural writer Bracewell has managed to write a book about a musical group that evinces virtually no interest in music. His purported subject is Roxy Music, which emerged in the early 1970s with an unpredictable sound and flashy look to become, with acts like David Bowie and T. Rex, the leaders of glam rock. Bracewell allows more than 300 pages to elapse before getting to the band’s first London rehearsal and closes with the release of its first album. The author marches lugubriously through his subjects’ education at various provincial English art schools during the ’60s, piling up mountains of detail while making obvious points about the confluence of art and style references in Roxy Music’s presentation. The central figure is lead vocalist Bryan Ferry, who studied visual arts in Newcastle with Pop Art figurehead Richard Hamilton (later to design the Beatles’s White Album). Saxophonist Andrew Mackay and keyboardist Brian Eno were similarly instructed at Reading and Winchester, respectively. Looking beyond the obvious influence of artists-provocateurs like Duchamp and Warhol, Bracewell considers the impact of such members of the Roxy orbit as clothing designer Antony Price and hair stylist Keith Wainwright. Ferry, Eno and Mackay are extensively interviewed (without benefit of judicious editing), as are Roxy guitarist Phil Manzanera, drummer Paul Thompson and a host of art-scene types. Ultimately, the author fails to connect the dots for the reader—his voluminous research never pays off with a deeper understanding of ’70s British pop.
Those with an endless interest in English art movements of the ’60s may find Bracewell’s work endlessly fascinating. Anyone who wants to learn something about the band will be swiftly exhausted by this unsifted lode of dead-end minutiae.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-306-81400-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
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
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
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