Berberova's elegant and uncommon biography of the Russian poet Blok defies easy categorization and is a literary event in its own right. Aleksandr Blok (18801921) was a leader of the Russian Symbolists at the turn of the century and ranks among the greatest modern Russian poets. Of particular interest are Blok's artistic and personal reactions to the revolutionary changes in Russian politics and society during his lifetime: his shift from poetic mysticism to a perception of life deeply colored by historical forces, and his astute predictions about Russia's bloody future. A major English-language biography, Avril Pyman's Life of Aleksandr Blok, appeared in 1979, and readers of his poetry who seek details of the life should still turn to that earlier work. Those more interested in the fin-de-siäcle and revolutionary settings of Blok's creative genius will be well served by this new work. Berberova's essay is as much a portrait of Russian society as it is a story of Blok himself, and in the author's deft hand the two are palpably, convincingly linked. Part of the appeal of this biography is the author's lyrical and highly personal, empathetic voice. Berberova, who died in 1993, was both a professor of Russian literature at Princeton and the author of fiction and an autobiography (The Tattered Cloak, 1991, etc.). She lived until the age of 20 in Blok's St. Petersburg and moved in similar literary circles. As she poignantly relates here, Berberova was present at Blok's deathbed, and she offers a heartfelt interpretation of the poet's death: ``We all felt it was the and of a life, the end of a city, the end of a world.'' Soon after his death, she fled Russia. Aleksandr Blok: A Life is Berberova's profoundly moving posthumous homage to a poet, a city, and an era she knew intimately.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8076-1408-4
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Braziller
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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