Verbose, engrossing tale of old-school hazard-embracing manhood.
Obsessively detailed account of a life spent recklessly adventuring, by “the world’s greatest living explorer” (according to Guinness).
Fiennes (Race to the Pole: Tragedy, Heroism, and Scott’s Antarctic Quest, 2004, etc.), an older cousin of actors Ralph and Joseph, would seem like a British archetype of eccentric bluster were his feats of endurance not so remarkable. Although he has written about them in specific narratives, this book presents a panoramic view of his life. Conceived during World War II on his father’s last leave prior to being killed, it was perhaps inevitable that the youthful baronet would yearn for heroism. As an adolescent at the prestigious Eton school, he earned the titular epithet via numerous pranks involving explosives and wall climbing. Hungry for military adventure, he joined the SAS (akin to Special Forces); realizing his reckless streak would keep him from advancing, he then volunteered for combat in Oman, helping the Sultan suppress a Marxist rebellion. Although tempted by the life of a mercenary soldier, Fiennes was deeply in love with a young woman named Ginny; he married her to keep from losing her, then embarked on a seemingly endless string of risky endeavors while disingenuously mourning time spent away from home. Beginning with a 1970 expedition to survey a remote Norwegian glacier, he pursued numerous sponsored journeys to the far ends of the earth. (“Spend no money on mounting an expedition” is his business motto.) He devoted most of the ’70s to an ambitious plan to circumnavigate the globe via the two poles, with no less a sponsor than Prince Charles. This led to more ambitious punishments, like a plan “to reach the North Pole with no outside support and no air contact.” Even after losing fingers to frostbite, Fiennes kept going, ultimately attacking both Everest and Eiger, as well as returning to the Arctic. The narrative becomes a blur of technique, landscape and the baffling dangers faced by Fiennes and his long-suffering wife and associates.
Verbose, engrossing tale of old-school hazard-embracing manhood.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-340-95169-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
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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