A freeform category, then, marked by a rather shapeless but still quite readable, collection. Good stuff, if you like that...
Is an outlaw writer one who threatens to fill Marshall McLuhan with pencil lead?
The editors of this overstuffed anthology never quite get around to defining just what “outlaw literature” is and what makes it illicit, dangerous, or otherwise suspect, except to hint that it stands in some sort of opposition to the world of “reality shows, Botox, or IPOs,” to say nothing of a “culture coming of age in the grip of Google and Wal-mart.” Resounding sentiments, those, and the editors, famed counterculturists in their own right, presumably know outlaw literature when they see it. Still, you might wonder: What do Richard Brautigan and Mickey Spillane, who took home hefty advances and even heftier royalty checks, really have in common with, say, Boxcar Bertha and Sonny Barger? Would Emma Goldman have much to say to Valerie Solanas, Ray Bradbury to DMX? Only a deconstructionist, perhaps, could say with any authority. For our purposes, being an outlaw writer appears mostly to mean using lots of naughty words (Barry Gifford: “Willie Wild Wong, you dumb motherfucker!”; Jim Carroll: “‘I am the proletariat, you dumb bastard,’ he said, ‘and I think those motherfuckers are off their rockers”) and doing lots of naughty and unhealthful things (Norman Mailer: “I threw up a little while ago and my breath is foul”; William Burroughs: “Junk sickness, suspended by codeine and hop, numbed by weeks of constant drinking, came back on me full force”). Still, there are lots of good and memorable things here, among them Paul Krassner’s memoir of dropping acid with Groucho Marx; Dee Dee Ramone’s heartfelt plea, “Please don’t kill me now, God. I would love to be the last Ramone to die” (no such luck, sorry); and Malcolm X’s spot-on prediction that after his death “the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with ‘hate.’ ”
A freeform category, then, marked by a rather shapeless but still quite readable, collection. Good stuff, if you like that sort of thing.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-56025-550-1
Page Count: 704
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
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
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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