Nine autobiographical essays (all published previously in literary magazines) by National Book Award-winning poet Levine, forming a rough but revealing chronicle of influences and inspiring moments—from the author's humbling origins to his contemplations of later life. In the first episode, a gentle tribute to John Berryman- -Levine's mentor in his first year at the Iowa Writers' Workshop- -the life and craft of the poet appear completely entwined. Whether learning at the feet of the prickly but humane Berryman, or subsequently being encouraged as a Stanford Fellow under the tutelage of Yvor Winters, apprentice Levine's circumstances are rendered with wit and considerable feeling. Other experiences, however—including a 1965 sabbatical with wife and children in Franco's Spain that afforded the opportunity to discover and appreciate Spanish poets such as Antonio Machado (with five poems of Machado, translated by Levine, included) and to grasp the full tragedy of the Republican defeat—prove even more moving. In a typically wide-ranging chain of associations, another essay links childhood encounters with class realities in Detroit to much later ruminations on Spanish anarchism experienced while the poet was in Barcelona—with these linked to Levine's apology, through analysis of Yeat's ``Sailing to Byzantium,'' for having failed to live according to the anarchist ideal. Restless, probing fragments of a memoir that mix lyricism and life in equal measure, creating a subtle portrait of the poet both in embryo and fulled formed.
Pub Date: Jan. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42406-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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