From the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Teaching a Stone to Talk, etc., a mosaic of essays on writers and writing, shimmering here and there with a lovely phrase, a bit of sage advice, but often done in by overwrought imagery and overheated views. "When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe"—so begins the text, revealing at once Dillard's penchant for rhythmic repetition and blunt, down-to-earth, Anglo-Saxon language. She's at her best when she keeps it simple—describing her cluttered desk, her pine study (a prefab toolshed), the time her electric typewriter exploded. The physicality of the writer's life—mounds of paper, "refried coffee"—appeals to her and, through her enthusiasm, to us. Good, too, are the little anecdotes of her daily walks, and of other writers' schedules. On the other hand, only the most placid of readers will fail to fidget during the patches of strangely sloppy prose, including banal observations ("putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating"); suffocating alliteration ("the reason to perfect a piece of prose as it progresses. . ."); perplexing inaccuracies ("out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year"); and (presumably inadvertent) parodies of Melville ("the page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly. . ."). To top it off, Dillard's technique of juxtaposing apparently disconnected little essay fragments, which in the past has at times led to unexpected richness of insight, in this book leads largely to head-scratching. Happily, Dillard winds up with a graceful essay about a brilliant stunt pilot whose daring twists and rolls provide an apt metaphor for the writing life. This, plus her undeniable authority when discussing the miseries and joys that attend the world of pen and ink, makes this slim volume, if not a triumph, at least worth the read.
Pub Date: Sept. 13, 1989
ISBN: 0060919884
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1989
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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