There are 20 pages of chapter notes, but this biography is too good to be confused with literary criticism. Powers calls out...
An eloquent portrait of the American Renaissance’s greatest writer as a young man. Powers is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of eight books.
His expertise in popular culture, mass media, history, and the American small town is in evidence here as in Far from Home: Life and Loss in Two American Towns (1991). Powers, who also grew up in Hannibal, Mo., sees Mark Twain as America’s first popular, media-fed superstar who knew how to dress for the photo op. Powers exposes Clemens’s mirth for the flip side of the man’s many tragedies. “Sammy” was a premature baby and sickly toddler who grew up into the barefoot boy who showed off for the girl we'd know as Becky Thatcher. Far from a protected and fanciful Tom Sawyer, Clemens, as a three-year-old sleepwalker, tugged at his sister’s blanket a few days before she died. She was one of several siblings Sam would lose. Unsuccessful but not evil like Huck Finn’s papy, Samuel’s father was relatively bland, passing on only his tendency toward bad debts and investments. Powers shows that young Sam was fascinated by the spoken word (whether of preachers or slaves) and by books, from the Bible (despite his famous heresy) to Cooper, because his reality was so painful. The biographer notes an inner conflict that is the key to Clemens’s appeal: “the Connecticut literary gent contending with the western roughneck.” After adolescence, itching to light out for the territories, young Clemens “made the break from his landlocked life” and talked himself to the captain’s wheel on riverboats. Powers feels the Mark Twain pseudonym helped free Clemens to become the age’s most celebrated humorist, traveler, lecturer and novelist.
There are 20 pages of chapter notes, but this biography is too good to be confused with literary criticism. Powers calls out “mark twain” and leads us on Samuel Clemens’s dangerous, poignant, and delightful voyage against the current.Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-465-07670-X
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A daunting but worthwhile journey through the material and divine realms of our universe.
An intriguing if sometimes ponderous examination of man's place in the universe.
Bartow creates a systematic philosophic framework for integrating concepts from diverse disciplines, such as astrology, psychology, metaphysics, theology, eastern and western mysticism and quantum physics. The author uses complex–and often unintelligible–diagrams to create a visual representation of the corporeal and spiritual universe, building layers of complexity that illustrate the dynamic interaction of mind, matter, energy and spirituality. He divides man’s perception of the universe into objective and subjective categories with distinctive subcategories, using piano keys as the primary metaphor–the black keys represent the objective planes, embodied in the concrete laws of science, and the white keys represent the subjective interior planes. The author makes frequent use of the philosophies from such ancient traditions as the Kabbalah, Buddhism, the teachings of Don Juan and Tibetan thought. The massive scope of Bartow’s vision eventually becomes overwhelming, and the esoteric nature of the study will deter casual readers. Ultimately, however, the text will prove thought-provoking and rewarding for the diligent.
A daunting but worthwhile journey through the material and divine realms of our universe.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9760863-0-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.
A thoroughly documented scholarly treatise on Brazilian history.
In the first of two volumes spanning 500 years of Brazilian history, Hufferd focuses on the first 300 years of colonization in the northeast region. Portugal was seeking to build maritime trade to compete successfully with archrival Spain and to retain its national identity. The colony expanded westward from a number of large tracts of lands called captaincies, granted by Portuguese monarchs to wealthy royal favorites in return for profits gained through trade, breeding cattle and other ventures. These captaincies eventually gained the status of states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grasso, Manaus and Amazonia. Over subsequent decades, enterprising adventurers and explorers from these captaincies ventured inland, establishing sugar mills, cultivating grazing land and extracting gold, silver and precious gems. All ventures were highly labor-intensive, requiring massive amounts of manpower driven by slaves from Africa and native tribes. In the second volume, Hufferd focuses on the final 200 years of Brazil's rapid industrialization. After the Portuguese monarchy was forced to relocate its base from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, it became the fulcrum of a delicate political system within the new country. The social and political structure favored privileged hereditary landowners, even after the last reigning Emperor Pedro II was deposed amidst strong republican sentiment. Continuing the narrative through 2000, Hufferd chronicles upheavals most often caused by the chronic underdevelopment of existing resources, as the landowners maintained authority over the land, to the detriment of the black, mulatto and tribal segments of Brazilian society, who remained disenfranchised until recent years. In each volume, the author illustrates his vast knowledge of the topic, and he weaves political, economic, social and biographical threads throughout the panoramic narrative. While the expansive footnotes demonstrate impeccable research, they eventually hinder the narrative flow, requiring endless paging back and forth–the dissertation-style format ultimately detracts from the book's impact.
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-4208-0278-X, Vol.
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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