Except for brief introductions to the journal entries, Schumacher allows the selections to stand alone as testimony to an...
A representative sampling from an iconic American poet.
A prolific poet and political gadfly, Ginsberg (1926-1997) never wrote an autobiography, but he did keep journals, write letters to fellow poets, and reflect on his life and work in interviews and essays. Schumacher (November's Fury: The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913, 2013, etc.), Ginsberg’s biographer, offers a well-chosen selection of his writings in this copious collection: 34 poems, including the famous “Howl” and “Kaddish”; 10 essays, including his testimony regarding LSD before a special Senate Judiciary Committee; assorted journal entries from 1949 to 1969, several unpublished; two lengthy interviews; and a dozen letters to prominent Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Burroughs and Robert Creeley. Forthright about fueling his creativity with a cornucopia of drugs, Ginsberg expounds on his interest in “all states of consciousness”: dreams, spiritual ecstasy, and “preconscious, quasi-sleep” states. Besides Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Blake, he cites as influences William James, especially Varieties of Religious Experience, and the poetry of James’ student Gertrude Stein. In an “Independence Day Manifesto” in 1959, he proclaimed that America “is having a nervous breakdown,” intent on oppressing poets for their allegedly anti-social behavior. But in a country “gone mad with materialism, a police-state America, a sexless and soulless America,” poetry offered solace and wisdom. “Poetry,” he contended, “is the record of individual insights into the secret soul of the individual and…into the soul of the world.” A few years later, he again chided Americans for living in a “mental dictatorship” of materialism and conformity. If his solution—everyone should try LSD once—seems capricious, his critique is likely to resonate with contemporary readers.
Except for brief introductions to the journal entries, Schumacher allows the selections to stand alone as testimony to an often outrageous, groundbreaking poet and tireless social activist.Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236228-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
