Pleasingly accessible picture of the faraway childhood that molded a modern artist.
Chronicle of the 1997 Nobel Laureate playwright’s formative years and experiences in his native Italy.
No ponderous discourse on the meaning of life and art from the man (b. 1926) whose body of work includes a TV drama the Catholic Church called the “most blasphemous” ever broadcast to the Italian public. Indeed, Fo’s consistent vein of socialist anti-authoritarian themes even gave the U.S. government pause about granting him a visa to perform here 20 years ago. In his memoir, however, with Farrell’s adept translation, Fo gives glimpse after revealing glimpse of the shy station-master’s son whose imagination, nurtured by caring parents and relatives, and hunger for the aura of the fabulatore—the storyteller—took him far beyond the railroad tracks of his youth. So willing were his parents to enrich his fantasy life, for example, that they encouraged him to believe that all the roof tiles in the Swiss town he could see across Lake Maggiore were made of chocolate. This gentle joke was on him, but Fo realized early on that it was far more fun telling stories when the joke was on the listener, just as his maternal grandfather, Bristìn (a nickname meaning “pepper seed”), would win over customers for his farm produce by needling them as they gathered to buy. But it was the glass-blowers, fishermen and smugglers in the international factory town of Porto Valtravaglia, where his father was reposted, who riveted him with their elaborate stories. After much examination of “the texts of medieval codices and poets,” Fo writes, “I discovered, not without some smug self satisfaction, that . . . in those writings lie the roots of every fable I learned from my story tellers.” The memoir also covers the author’s comic adventures in deserting from the fascist army in wartime by first volunteering for hazardous duty.
Pleasingly accessible picture of the faraway childhood that molded a modern artist.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-35917-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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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