A work invaluable for what it says, frustrating for what it does not.
The first English translation of the desultory, digressive recollections—originally published in 1933—of the youngest brother of the celebrated playwright, novelist and short-story writer.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who died of tuberculosis in 1904, grew up in a family that struggled to survive and lived apart for a time while the father looked for work in Moscow after departing the countryside, where his family had risen from serfdom. Eventually, the artistic, intellectual family reassembled, and the boys, though struggling financially, found ways to pay for their educations. Anton became a physician, a profession he never completely surrendered, and then the writer whose stories and plays continue to delight and illuminate. The text here is nothing like a contemporary memoir. There is very little about anyone’s inner life—even Anton’s marriage occurs offstage in several swift sentences—and the author, though he proceeds chronologically, pauses often to append asides on a variety of subjects, including visitors to their house or his own struggles and successes as a writer. He sometimes gets dates and places wrong—the translator makes corrections in the endnotes—and avoids analysis of Anton’s work. He does tell the story of an actual shooting of a seagull that may have been the genesis of that eponymous play, and talks about how Anton met with Tolstoy—but nothing about what occurred. Still, there are memorable images that give us a taste of what a frisky, playful prankster Anton was before TB struck him down. He once went fishing with a friend in formal tails and top hat; he startled another sleeping friend with a flashlight in the face; he kept a pet mongoose that alarmed visitors.
A work invaluable for what it says, frustrating for what it does not.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-230-61883-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2009
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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