The latest collection of quasi-autobiographical “familiar essays” by Epstein (Pertinent Players: Essays on the Literary Life, 1993, etc.) offers the pleasures of smart faculty-party conversation. The titular opening essay adroitly addresses the 60ish author’s physical appearance in candid detail. It acknowledges the egocentricity of Epstein’s “familiar” variation on the personal essay, but the self-regarding subject is one he knows well and can make amusing. While Epstein’s topics include the social traps of accents and pronunciation (“So to Speak”), aging past 60 (“Will You Still Feed Me?”), the limits of mere talent (“What’s In It for the Talent?”), and “Anglophilia, American Style,” the main subject is himself, Chicago-born former university lecturer and erstwhile editor of the American Scholar. In the case of his experience with bypass surgery, the result is an extraordinarily obvious and prosaic piece of journalism, but that is an exception. Epstein’s lightly worn seriousness, as well as his gift for self deflation and deft way with quotations, distinguish him from the Andy Rooney—Charles Osgood school of commentating when he tackles such finical matters as snoozing (“The Art of the Nap”), the over-knowledgeable classes (“An Extremely Well-Informed S.O.B.”), and pet peeves (his include dumbed-down footnotes, “fun” as an adjective, and the cult of American celebrity exemplified by “the Swiss Family Kennedys”). He can be something of an old fogey, as when he complains in “A Nice Little Knack for Name-Dropping” that there aren—t any good ones to drop today, or bemoans the decline of popular music in the mildly elegiac “I Like a Gershwin Tune.” Closure comes with a remembrance of University of Chicago sociologist Edward Shils (“My Friend Edward”), who seems to represent an ideal Epstein aspires to, from his transatlantic accent and acerbic sense of humor to his thorough erudition, integrity, and disdain for received ideas and academic cant. Vintage Epstein, for those who don—t mind a faint bouquet of self-absorption.
Pub Date: May 14, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-94403-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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