A poet's amble in prose through poetry and other byways of language and art. Wilbur, who published a previous volume of prose pieces, Responses, in 1976, calls this sequel ``a mixture or jumble of efforts in various . . . modes.'' But it is more and better than that. He magnetizes subjects of literary and personal interest (e.g., Edgar Allen Poe; the craft of translation) that combine eventually to suggest an intellectual self-portrait. For example, consider his opinionated yet revealing comment on cinema in ``Movies and Dreams'': ``Watching film is (for me, for most) so much less judicial and analytic than other art experiences. The conventions are transparent, the molding of the imagination is insidious.'' Although basically conservative and somewhat patrician in taste, Wilbur can turn this tendency into a means of stimulation with his precision of mind and language—even if you happen to disagree with him. In one essay, for instance, he does his best to raise the standing of often-derided poet and patron Witter Bynner. He is alert and fair, announcing in ``Forewords'': ``I hope that a persistence or resurgence of metrical writing, and of artifice in general, will now restore some lost force and expressive capability in American poetry.'' Nevertheless, he also recognizes that ``no form belongs inevitably with any theme or attitude; no form is good or appropriate in itself, but any form can be made good by able hands.'' The book includes surprises, notably Wilbur's lecture about riddles, given in 1988 at the Library of Congress. Here he surveys types and scrutinizes examples of riddles with a playful earnestness, arguing in favor of their acceptance as ``a poetic form.'' Wilbur's clarity and his rationalness—his lack of romantic sympathies—will strengthen his appeal for some. A smart, cleanly written, yet not especially adventurous harvest.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-200254-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
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
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
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