The inimitable novelist gives an exuberant posthumous performance in this eclectic collection of (mostly) previously unpublished addresses, talks, and incidental pieces. ``We Canadians are gluttons for instruction; we dote on lectures,'' Davies observed to one of his many audiences, but anyone's literary appetite will be glutted on these collected talks—with such topics as his own novels, forged paintings, and Canadian cultural identity. The prolific Davies and his publisher were contemplating this volume just before the author's death, and his widow and daughter have turned up enough material for two (the second, Happy Alchemy, will revolve around theater and music). With his background in the theater and pomp-and-circumstance academe, to say nothing of his literary breadth, Davies proves a veteran at the lectern, ready to expound on seemingly everything. Although he has the podium-persona of a curmudgeonly, elitist Canadian author, valuable (sometimes tendentious) insights emerge from his discussions of his experiences of character-building at school, the preservation of Canadian cultural identity in the face of NAFTA, and the medical profession's balance between science and humanism. For more general themes, e.g., ``Literature and Technology,'' ``Fiction of the Future,'' and ``Creativity in Old Age,'' Davies diffuses his opinions entertainingly, if occasionally superficially, but never loses his audience. On occasion he is called on to be simply a toastmaster: giving a convocation address on the virtues of poetry without putting the undergrads to sleep, introducing Canadian colleague Mavis Gallant, or reminiscing divertingly about his editorship at Saturday Night magazine, Canada's equivalent of Harper's. Most fittingly of all, Davies lectures on Dickens's spellbinding public readings and the theatrical effects of A Christmas Carol. As Davies noted in a diary entry prefacing one of these talks, he had to leave special room for laughter in his running time.
Pub Date: July 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87336-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
