A thoughtful and unusual work, and a potentially dangerous one—in that it just might seduce one into neglecting other...
The factual origins of an unforgettable fictional character are the subject of this engrossing semi-scholarly “meditation” by a veteran French novelist, biographer, and literary scholar.
The work Raczymow (Writing the Book of Esther, not reviewed, etc.) thus explores is Proust’s multivolume 20th-century masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. And the character is that of Charles Swann, socialite and dilettante, lover of notorious demimondaine Odette de Crécy, and—this the source of his only conditional acceptance by the polite society through which Swann warily moves—a Jew. It has long been recognized that Proust based the figure of Swann on a real person named Charles Haas, whose personal history paralleled Swann’s at numerous crucial points. Raczymow therefore sets about “identifying the thread of fortuitous complicity between Proustian fiction and reality,” interviewing fellow literary researchers, combing through the Paris city archives, speculating on possible links between Haas and such notables as painter Edgar Degas, thespian Sarah Bernhardt (who wrote Haas several fulsome letters), and persecuted (Jewish) French army officer Alfred Dreyfus. Raczymow also considers contemporary Proustian avatars like actors Alain Delon (who played the malevolent Baron Charlus in Volker Schlondorff’s 1984 film Swann in Love) and Jeremy Irons (whose performance as Swann in that film all but persuades Raczymow that Haas may have been an Englishman). Beneath the lucubrations, the reader grasps Raczymow’s reluctant inferences that “To Proust, by definition, everything that is Jewish is debased”; that Haas/Swann incarnated for Proust the vanity of a life devoted to the imperatives of society; and that the “anonymity” into which Haas has seemingly sunk signifies the far reach of anti-Semitism—in literature as in life.
A thoughtful and unusual work, and a potentially dangerous one—in that it just might seduce one into neglecting other responsibilities and plunging once again into Proust’s intricate, seductive, and disturbing fictional world.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8101-1925-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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