This hefty debut biography gives a respectful, impartial account of AndrÇ Breton's (18961966) life and of the movement he founded and led. The eclectic Surrealist alumni include many of the century's most famous artistsDal°, Giacometti, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Luis Bu§uelmost of whom eventually left the movement's ranks or were expelled, Polizzotti observes, because of ``the conflict between their need to develop freely and Breton's will to maintain a Surrealist cohesion in his own unstable image.'' Born to lower-class parents who encouraged a medical career, Breton began his literary strivings under the influence of Symbolism, the avant-garde poet Apollinaire, and the manic playwright Alfred Jarry. After a fraught association with Dadaism, Breton and his compatriots embarked on Surrealism, drawing on their previous literary experiments and Freud's writings on madness and dreams. Charismatic, cerebral, and autocratic, Breton was dubbed the ``pope'' of Surrealism as its chief organizer and theoretician, and Polizzotti capably, if staidly, recounts the ceremonial sessions of automatic writing, induced slumber, and verbal games like Exquisite Corpse. Breton also engaged in bull-like manifestos and excommunications, such as those of Louis Aragon for joining the Stalinist French Communists and Dal° for independence. This puritanical dogmatism was offset by personal idealism and a lyric streak that expressed themselves in romantic attachments and hero worship. Polizzotti recounts Breton's relations with not only the famous (the unimpressed Freud and the philistine Trotsky) but also the biographically problematicthe enigmatic dandy Jacques VachÇ and the half-mad ``Nadja,'' both of whom Breton mythologized in his work. Surrealism thrived on public outrage, but by the end of WW II it was a spent force, as was Breton. Polizzotti, the editorial director of David R. Godine, is more scrupulous in supplying the external essentials than the inspired madness of Breton's inward experiment. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-24982-2
Page Count: 600
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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