The retired actor muses with humble precision on the little details of his life; the results are sometimes mundane, often witty, and occasionally transcendent. Readers of Guinness’s previously published diary (My Name Escapes Me, 1997) might expect more of the same, but the new volume is subtly different. The previous book was a traditional diary with clearly marked dates; this one has few dates, instead meandering like a stream-of-consciousness novel, or, as Guinness puts it, “a sort of sluggish river.” Though Guinness begins with an eye operation in August 1996, at age 82, the bulk of the journal records events from March 1997 to late 1998, with frequent digressions into the past. We hear about the books he reads (Trollope, Piers Paul Read); the plays, movies, and television he sees (“Loved a recent TV programme on ravens”). He comments on Tony Blair’s election as prime minister, Princess Diana’s death, President Clinton and “That Woman.” We learn about his travels, his pets, his antipathy for Star Wars, and how difficult it is to poach an egg. Through it all, in a manner reminiscent of his master, Montaigne, he weaves philosophical musings and memories of his long, rich career as an actor, often through segues entertaining in their audacity’such as the one leading from a new mobile telephone to a disquisition on technical jargon to a memory of actress Coral Browne skating past an exhibitionist. Some details are tiresome enough to encourage skipping, but the skipper may miss a gem—like Marlene Dietrich’s annual New Year’s Eve “assignment . . . with a well-set-up gentleman from outer space.” Worse, one might overlook the fascinating way in which details build into themes and themes into a vision—of the nature of acting, the “humiliations of age,” and the layered meanings of the old poster phrase “Positively Final Appearance.” At its worst quotidian, at its best high art, from an actor who has earned the name of writer.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88800-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
