A study of Callas (1923-77) not to be missed. Scott (Artistic Director/London Opera Society; The Great Caruso, 1988) met and saw Callas perform several times in houses throughout the world and proves even more personally knowledgeable and fine-tuned about her voice than John Ardoin did in his encyclopedic The Callas Legacy (1977). Though a biography that breaks myths and draws upon fresh accounts written by Callas's family and secretary during the past decade, as well as upon interviews with Callas's fellow singers, conductors, and producers, this is as much a book about singing as about a person. The focus is equally upon the voice as the life, or upon the life of the voice, with only about a ten-year span in which the voice was at its most secure and responsive to every nuance of feeling Callas wished it to produce. Born in New York, she early began vocal training, went to Greece in the late 30's to study, began concertizing and learning roles. Most adept at florid bel canto, her voice stood up to the rigors of Isolde, Turandot, and Leonora, roles that called for a big sound to battle against the orchestra. She gave up these roles (Turandot was ``a voice-wrecker,'' and houses called for Isoldes in German, not Callas's limpid, spontaneous, tender Italian), turned largely to Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, and the young Verdi, in whom she found huge rooms of fresh vocal drama untouched by fellow singers, allowing space for her dramatic coloratura. While still ``amazingly fat,'' and jealous of her svelte sister, Jackie (as she was to be later of another svelte Jackie), she married her aging patron, Giovanni Meneghini, and in her voice's declining years ran off with aging billionaire Aristotle Onassis. Callas died in Paris, weakened by pills, abandoned by Ari. A feast for fans, refreshing as a bowl of sun-ripened pears. (Illustrations—not seen.)
Pub Date: Sept. 25, 1992
ISBN: 1-55553-146-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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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