Even the most sophisticated readers will learn much from these erudite perambulations.
The renowned novelist (The Married Man, 2000, etc.) offers an intensely personal portrait of one of the world’s great metropolises.
A big city, White quotes “a reckless friend” as saying, is “a place where there are blacks, tall buildings and you can stay up all night.” Paris fills the bill—and besides, the author adds on his own account, there you can buy heroin, “hear preposterous theories that are closely held and furiously argued,” and see some of the world’s most satisfying architecture. Above all else, White observes, Paris is a walker’s city—not a “village” like Rome or a “backwater” like Zürich, but a city whose bounds can comfortably be traversed in a long evening’s stroll. Himself an accomplished flâneur (stroller) in a city full of them, White offers notes on the grammar of the Parisian street, which is markedly unlike that of a street in, say, New York: “Americans,” he writes, “consider the sidewalk an anonymous backstage space, whereas for the French it is the stage itself.” Passing along arrondissements and îles and boulevards, White takes a sidelong view at French culture, with its marked tolerance for African-Americans but disdain for Africans, especially Arabs, and its astounding history of anti-Semitism; its pretensions to greatness and its frequent attainment of the same; and its seeming invulnerability to shock at any of the flesh’s various gratifications. White, a pioneer of gay literature, spends portions of his book strolling through the homosexual demimonde of Paris, which is at once less self-conscious and more embattled than homosexual communities elsewhere. His book, however, should by no means be confined to the gay-lit shelves, for it provides sophisticated reflections on a city dear to so many travelers that has seen its day but retains its allure.
Even the most sophisticated readers will learn much from these erudite perambulations.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58234-135-4
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
IN THE NEWS
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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