An accomplished and highly readable contribution to the recent wave of revisionist Chaplin biographies (such as Joyce Milton's Tramp, 1996). Reviled at the height of the Cold War as a moral bankrupt and a Communist sympathizer, then apologetically forgiven in the '70s as a persecuted genius, Chaplin is now under attack again. Perhaps time, which wounds all heels, has allowed a proper perspective, or perhaps Chaplin's victim persona is out of step with our ``pull yourself together'' culture, but either way, the Little Tramp's reputation is close to an all-time low. Lynn's (Hemingway, 1987, etc.) account is hardly the nastiest. In fact, he has a certain grudging respect for his subject. But he does make sure to highlight Chaplin's heedless politics (such as defending Stalin's show trials and pogroms), and no moral failing, from his stinginess and ingratitude to his fondness for young girls, is left unremarked. Lynn also continues the process of whittling away at Chaplin's movies. While acknowledging some, such as City Lights and The Gold Rush, as masterpieces, he dismisses most of the ``talkies'' (hardly a unique critical position). Most biographers have focused on Chaplin's traumatic childhood as the source of his creativity—and insufferability—but Lynn does an excellent job of teasing out innumerable autobiographical elements in Chaplin's work. He also offers some useful correctives. For example, through an ingenious use of maps and data, he is able to determine that the various lodgings the young Chaplin lived in weren't as Dickensian and bleak as Chaplin claimed. This leads Lynn to speculate that Chaplin's barely employed mother might have engaged in prostitution. Lynn also dabbles in Freudian interpretations of Chaplin's behavior and work that are compelling, if not always completely convincing. While this biography isn't as detailed or thorough as some (for example, Lynn slides over Chaplin's tax troubles in a few sentences), it has all the pacing, sense of character, and narrative verve of a good novel. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-80851-X
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
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
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