A profusely illustrated, deeply thoughtful meditation on art.
An obsession with Pieter Bruegel the Elder elicits a vibrant portrait of the artist’s work and world.
Ferris, creator of the web-based Anatomy of Norbiton, which he describes as “essays on suburban life and universal failure as seen through the lens of Renaissance art,” makes his book debut with a captivating chronicle of his journeys to collections around the world in search of paintings by Bruegel. In 2012, the 42-year-old author became overwhelmed by “a mania for Bruegel,” incited by Landscape With the Fall of Icarus—not an authentic Bruegel, he discovered, but more likely a copy—which he saw at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels. “Why Bruegel?, why all of it? and why now?”: Ferris never fully answers those questions as he embarks on his quest, revealing only that at the time he felt at loose ends, “on the payroll of a dying software company,” and working mostly at home, tinkering with Anatomy of Norbiton. Tracking down works by Bruegel gave him “a defined and manageable project.” Ferris does not explain why he juxtaposes his insights into Bruegel’s work with a memoir about his father, an engineer who worked for the General Electric Company and who died in 2009. The author portrays his father with affection but strains to connect him to Bruegel. Documentary evidence for his father’s life is scant, Ferris admits, consisting of a few methodically kept lists; similarly, for Bruegel, there is “only the vivid remnant flesh of the paintings and drawings and engravings.” The author illuminates those works with an astute, knowing eye and penetrating insight, admiring Bruegel’s precision in rendering scenes of peasant life: “the marginalized, the outcast, the strange,” whom the artist depicted “not necessarily with sympathy”; or “the great theatre of suffering,” such as bear-baiting, “which kept the sixteenth century amused.” Along with reflections on artworks, Ferris shares sharp, often amusing details of ambience, hotels, trains, meals, and much beer in each city he visits.
A profusely illustrated, deeply thoughtful meditation on art.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293175-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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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