Lively, wide-ranging collection of 75 pieces written over the past ten years by the author of The Satanic Verses. Would this collection exist had The Satanic Verses not made the Ayatollah Khomeini's hit parade? Yes. Rushdie has the extra edge of an international mind that acknowledges two political and several literary homelands. His subjects here revolve around the politics of India and Pakistan, censorship, literature, movies, TV, the experience of Indian migrants to Britain, his thoughts on the Thatcher/Foot election, and on writers: Anita Desai, Kipling, V.S. Naipaul, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Raymond Carver, Saul Bellow, Philip Ruth, Thomas Pynchon, and so on. He comes down hard on the recent spate of British-Indian shows, finding Gandhi, A Passage to India, The Far Pavilions, and The Raj Quartet/The Jewel in the Crown to be guilty of the sins they attack: the Indians do not get equal time while British rule is glamorized; it is the British characters whose stories matter to the writers and filmmakers. He dismantles "Inside the Whale," George Orwell's famous essay defending Henry Miller's political quietism, and attacks the same quietism in Orwell's 1984, to show that "there is no whale. We live in a world without hiding places. . ." He stands up for Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray against the Bombay film hacks. He praises Terry Gilliam's "magnificent film of future totalitarianism," Brazil, which combines Franz Kafka with Frank Capra. But perhaps the most eye-opening and affecting piece here is a long talk between Rushdie and Edward Said about Zionism and the nature of being a stateless Palestinian, "the victim of a victim." Rushdie's probing, teasing, intelligent voice is in every sentence; every word he writes feels personal. You can't ask for more than that in an essay.
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0140140360
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991
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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