A rollicking sequel to Rain of Gold (1991), which was likened in these pages to a Latin American Roots. Villase§or owes more to the magical realism of Gabriel Garc°a M†rquez, however, than to the thoroughgoing journalism of Alex Haley. The result is a portrait of the author's Mexican forebears that partakes freely of myth, huge symbols, and even the occasional nod to pop-culture touchstones like Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Villase§or revels in shaggy-dog stories, tales of picaresque misadventures, and especially folklore shaped for his own purposes. He opens with a retelling of the famous Nahuatl water serpent myth, with a delightful twist: If the villagers of his ancestral home eat sufficiently hot chilies, the fierce serpent will find expelling her human food so terrible that she will pick another town on which to dine. This saves the life of Villase§or's grandfather. Grandfather has gifts, among them the ability to converse with his broken-down stallion—think of Don Quixote's Rocinante here—and he rules his dusty roost with fierce love and passion. So great are his gifts that he feels compelled to announce them to all who will listen: ``I'm not some skinny little backward Indian-savage who knows how to talk horse to horses,'' he proclaims, ``I can force the entire animal kingdom to its knees in the name of God-given Christianity!'' Horse tamer, patriarch, and defier of all authority, Grandfather teaches his children well, and his descendants are fond of quoting the master. ``Remember what our grandfather always tells us,'' one says fondly, ``that a smart man is never wild or stupid, but has all the patience of the lion, and the lion and the jaguar aren't in the business of getting hurt or taking chances.'' That patience, Villase§or seems to suggest, is the clue to the Mexican people's survival, and his affectionate, tongue-in-cheek look into the past is a pleasure in every respect. (Author tour)
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-31566-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
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
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