Stavans brings infectious enthusiasm and penetrating scholarship to this lively investigation of a grand novel and its...
The 400-year history of the deeply influential Spanish novel.
Confessing his enduring love of Hispanic civilization, Stavans (Latin American and Latino Culture/Amherst Coll.; A Most Imperfect Union: A Contrarian History of the United States, 2011, etc.) claims that Cervantes’ masterwork is the “essence, the blueprint” of that culture’s DNA. The book’s irresistible theme “is that one must live life in a genuine way, passionately, in spite of what other people think.” Ranging across cultures and time, Stavans argues persuasively that Don Quixote has captivated the imaginations of writers (Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Borges, to name a few), artists (Picasso, Dalí, and Gustave Doré), filmmakers (Eric Rohmer, Peter Yates, and others), and even video game designers. Seven ballets are based on the novel, “all of them forgettable” in the author’s estimation. Except for the Bible, he notes, the novel is the most translated book into English—and he has read all of the translations, from Thomas Shelton’s (1612) to James H. Montgomery’s (2009). Stavans considers John Ormsby’s 1885 text the best. In Spain, the novel was rediscovered by the Generation of 1898, writers seeking “clues about Spain’s future” after the country’s devastating loss of its colonies. Quixotism, Stavans writes, “portrayed the idealism of the knight-errant as proof that Spain was delusional about its past, yet it implied that only idealism might help the country out of its depression.” Investigating the novel’s influence in the U.S., Stavans discovered that George Washington bought a copy on the day the Constitution was adopted; that Melville called Don Quixote “the greatest sage that ever lived”; and that Faulkner reread the novel every year. Quixote is the only literary character, Stavans notes, whose name has become an adjective, reflecting his “universal status.” The novel “is a mirror,” interpreted differently by different beholders.
Stavans brings infectious enthusiasm and penetrating scholarship to this lively investigation of a grand novel and its readers.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-393-08302-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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