A worthy entry to the literature devoted to the Regency.
An unflattering portrait of the early-19th-century British monarch.
George, son of the Hanoverian king George III, was “witty, foppish and extravagant,” devoting his considerable energies to affairs of the bedroom rather than to affairs of state, firmly convinced of his brilliance and infallibility—and, royal-watcher Parissien writes, perhaps not a little loony, the victim of the porphyritic illness that had stricken his father (and inspired Alan Bennett’s play The Madness of King George). For his troubles, writes Parissien (Paul Mellon Center for the Study of British Art/Yale Univ.), George IV earned a place as “the most caricatured monarch in British history.” Satirists had much to work with: George was fond of second-tier Northern European art; collected castles and palaces, spending whole fortunes on restoring and redecorating them; liked to dress up in military garb and, furthermore, believed himself to have been present at battles against Napoleon when he in fact had been safe at home. Though his faults may have been forgivable and, considering the history of the British monarchy, not so terrible, George’s biggest offense may have been to believe his own press and to have offended English sensibilities with “blatant self-promotion.” Mostly he emerges from Parissien’s pages as clueless, not evil; readers may themselves be forgiven for extending to the poor man a few sympathies, especially after seeing how the likes of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and even Jane Austen rebuffed his offers of patronage (in exchange, one assumes, for a few nice words said about him). Despite his own sympathetic approach, Parissien closes by observing, “George merely succeeded in rendering the monarchy increasingly superfluous to the process of government and the life of the nation.”
A worthy entry to the literature devoted to the Regency.Pub Date: April 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-28402-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
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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