A tremendous portrayal of this transitional paradigm to modernism.
Beautifully rendered biography of the last of the great Victorian gentlemen-adventurers, by accomplished English author Wheeler (Cherry, 2002, etc.).
A charismatic personality of the first order, and with impeccable lineage to boot, Denys Finch Hatton (1887–1931) gained importance as one of the first-rank white hunters in British East Africa during the 1920s, as well as the lover of authors Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and Beryl Markham, among others. Known and loved by many, Finch Hatton tended to be “buried under his own reputation,” and Wheeler attempts to unearth the true character beneath the layers of legend. Son of the 13th Earl of Winchilsea and descendant of speculators and adventurers, the boy grew up in London and on the Haverholme estate in Lincolnshire and attended Eton during an idyllic period when he consolidated his friendships with golden Edwardian youths, some of whom subsequently perished in the trenches of World War I. A romantic anarchist bored with politics, enamored with flight and attracted to bohemian women, Finch Hatton found an escape route to British East Africa and maneuvered his way into forming a trading company. With the outbreak of World War I, and the enemy holding the shared border of German East Africa, he served as aide-de-camp under Reginald Hoskins—and here Wheeler does a masterful job of bringing to light a little-known aspect of the war in Africa. Later, he would make his livelihood as a white hunter hired by rich notables like the Prince of Wales, though Wheeler emphasizes his love of the land and his attempts by the late 1920s to prevent indiscriminate slaughter. Finch Hatton's dozen-year love affair with Baroness Blixen—who struggled to keep her coffee farm in the Ngong Hills, and to deal with syphilis and divorce—dominates the last half of the book.
A tremendous portrayal of this transitional paradigm to modernism.Pub Date: April 24, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-6069-9
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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