Eloquent at times and rambling at others, this colorful historical narrative will be of interest to academics of the...
A re-creation of a famous 1817 dinner party hosted by painter Benjamin Haydon for his friends John Keats, William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb serves as a way of exploring the lives, artistic sentiments and worldviews of some of the most influential literary figures of England’s Romantic period.
When Haydon invited his friends to dinner and tea on Dec. 28th, 1817—a night he would later refer to in his autobiography and diary entries as “the immortal dinner”—he did so for two reasons. The first was to introduce the young emerging poet Keats to Wordsworth, already considered a great Romantic poet. The second was to share his progress on his most important historical painting to that point, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem. A massive work that incorporated the faces of Keats, Wordsworth and Lamb, Haydon had spent three years on the painting by 1817 and would spend another three on it before it was completed. Although poet Plumly (Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography, 2009) does not spend significant time describing the “lively, even raucous evening” itself, he uses it as a way to ambitiously chronicle the events before and after the meal in each of the artist’s lives. The author also adopts a speculative tone when discussing the meal—e.g., after delving into their work to compare their differing views on poetry form: “You have to wonder if any of these issues were discussed or brought up at the immortal dinner.” In this exhaustively researched but occasionally digressive book, Plumly uses diary entries, autobiographies, historical accounts and excerpts of the artists’ works to explore a key time period in artistic and literary history.
Eloquent at times and rambling at others, this colorful historical narrative will be of interest to academics of the Romantic era, but the disorienting chronology and critical jargon may deter some general readers.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0393080995
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
PERSPECTIVES
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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