A flawed, curmudgeonly critique of humanity.
Debut author Nelson offers a plea for creative ideas to solve the problems of the modern era.
In this wide-ranging, scathing critique of the human race and, especially, the modern Western world, the author espouses progressive views, although not in the usual voice of mainstream liberalism. Instead, his work is unrestrained in tone and hard-hitting in its analysis. He begins by discussing various universal laws governing human life. A recurring theme is that of the “alpha factor”—the tendency of certain people to take on roles of leadership and of others to follow them. The author sees this as a major root of all of mankind’s problems: “The alpha factor is what causes human dissension,” he asserts. He even goes so far as to advocate that trained assassins end the lives of warlike leaders (“evil bastards”). He also cites religion, particularly Evangelical Christianity in the United States, as a destructive factor. After calling most Christian teachings myths, he blames “ignorant religious bigoted hypocrites” for distorting those myths into society-ruling dogmas. Throughout his work, Nelson blames Republicans for a wide range of evils, from tangling America in wars for the sake of profit to dismantling the nation’s educational system. His rhetoric along these lines is overarching and caustic; for example, regarding Southern slaveholding, he writes, “Many right-wing evangelical fundamentalist republicans [sic] with us today who oppose any and all progress from human misery and suffering sprang from those evil roots.” Overall, Nelson raises a variety of worthwhile points for discussion here. However, his angry rhetoric and uneven prose will impede readers from having a thoughtful dialogue with his ideas. He also would have done well to get a more thorough editorial review of his work, which might have improved its readability and appearance; its missing commas, missing apostrophes, lowercase proper nouns, and other errors are detrimental to the ideas he presents.
A flawed, curmudgeonly critique of humanity.Pub Date: May 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-51563-1
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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