Despite a lack of revelations, this is probably the best Olivier book for general readers.
Veteran biographer Ziegler (Edward Heath, 2010, etc.) offers a well-rounded portrait of the legendary English actor.
Laurence Olivier’s life (1907–1989) has been the subject of innumerable biographies, ranging from innocuous (Anthony Holden, 1988) to scandalous (Donald Spoto, 1992)—not to mention his own weirdly frank yet ultimately unrevealing Confessions of an Actor (1982). Ziegler’s version contains nothing particularly new on Olivier’s earlier years: the rivalry with John Gielgud in Romeo and Juliet, the partnership with Ralph Richardson at the Old Vic (home to Olivier’s greatest performance, in Richard III); his pioneering efforts as a popularizer of Shakespeare on film, most notably with Henry V; and the tragic marriage to Vivien Leigh, doomed by the basic incompatibility of their talents. Ziegler does convey a vivid sense of what made Olivier the most famous stage actor of the 20th century: He simply worked harder than anyone else and invested his roles with a physical bravura that made him thrilling to watch. The biography is notable for a substantive account of Olivier’s tenure as director of England’s National Theatre, during which he helped establish a fledgling organization with his charm and charisma while also displaying the well-known competitiveness that kept such acting peers as Gielgud and Richardson off the National’s roster. Nonetheless, as Ziegler notes, the National owed its existence to Olivier’s “passionate exuberance [and] dynamic energy”; he deserved better than the poorly managed transition to Peter Hall’s leadership in 1973. Olivier’s final years were marked by a series of debilitating illnesses that left him unable to work onstage, a painful fate for an actor who regarded film and TV as second choices. His formerly happy third marriage to Joan Plowright suffered in this period as well; once he could no longer act, he was a querulous old man waiting to die.
Despite a lack of revelations, this is probably the best Olivier book for general readers.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62365-042-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: MacLehose/Quercus
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
