Fans will certainly want more, but for now, this will do.
The Monty Python member and controversial filmmaker pens his "Gilliamesque" autobiography.
The only American-born member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Gilliam tells his tale—a "high-speed car chase…with lots of skids and crashes, many of the best moments whizzing by in a blur”—in a breezy, comical style full of digressions that are mostly interesting but occasionally uneven and distracting. The book is lavishly packed with entertaining stories and visual asides, photos, drawings, and illustrations, most accompanied by the author’s pithy commentary and reflections. Fans may be surprised to learn the Minnesotan was a Boy Scout and an exceptionally normal student. At Occidental College, he was a pole-vaulter, cheerleader, and class valedictorian. He did a stint in the National Guard and honed his exemplary drawing skills in New York City working at Help! Similar to Mad—Willy Elder's cartoons were "maybe the biggest single influence on how I'd make movies"—it provided Gilliam important illustrating experience and friendships with George Crumb and John Cleese. The author then moved to London and secured a position at the TV show We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, where he worked with Eric Idle and perfected his collage technique of combining found pictures with his own illustrations. Soon, the "foreigner" with fresh cartoons was asked to join the nascent Circus, which premiered on BBC in 1969. It wasn't long before fellow member Terry Jones and Gilliam were directing Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Then came Gilliam's Jabberwocky, and he was off on his own. Thanks to George Harrison's money, The Life of Brian was made, as was Gilliam's reputation as a director. Brazil—"my Citizen Kane"—followed, as did Baron Munchausen—"my Magnificent Ambersons." Unfortunately, the author only discusses the rest of his films, right up to his last, The Zero Theorem, in the final 50 pages.
Fans will certainly want more, but for now, this will do.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-238074-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper Design
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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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