Strong, wonderfully absorbing life of Beat bard Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926) that breaks new ground in its critical analyses of the poet's work; by Schumacher (Reasons to Believe, 1988—not reviewed). Readers might think that after Barry Miles's massive and masterful Ginsberg (1989), an equally massive biography coming so closely behind is more than one has the stamina for—but no. Schumacher goes over the same events in Ginsberg's life as Miles did, and does so with an intelligence that bonds us to the emotionally battered poet. Unlike Miles, he cuts off his biography in 1980: The bulk of Ginsberg's major works had appeared by then (one should have 1985's Collected Poems at hand to follow the critical argument). Also, unlike Miles, Schumacher uses few interviews, hoping to avoid mythologizing by going to original sources contemporary with the events described—largely collected archives of Ginsbergiana and Ginsberg's voluminous letters and journals kept from childhood, which form a vivid autobiography of events as they happened. Ginsberg's genie sprang from the marriage of his poet father and mad mother—a wildly outspoken radical—and was unstoppered by Blake, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and Jack Kerouac's spontaneous bop prosody. The young poet found his voice in ``Howl''—and what a voice it was. Schumacher takes us through the poem's drafts until it was shaped and given its final verbal lift and meticulously forceful imitation of spontaneity. One is struck time and again by Ginsberg's originality and the richly surreal syntax that opens doors to his most private experience. His Buddhism, raids on the political establishment, and Beat friends Kerouac, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, et al. get full treatment, as do his gay love affairs, especially with mainly heterosexual Peter Orlovsky. Ginsberg's bottomless aid to the bedeviled, learned in childhood, is stunning. Rings the doorbell on your heart, your brain, and your love of great verse. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-08179-0
Page Count: 752
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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