Somehow the powdered entrees and escritoire intrigue of the Sun King's court in Miss Mitford's (1966) presentation tire easier and jollier to trace than the drearier finagling which accompanied Frederick the Great's several military/political endeavors. However the author makes the most of that remarkable 18th century ruler's most striking attributes and accomplishments. Consistently harassed in the late years of his gout-ridden mad rather, King Frederick William (the "Soldier King"), it is a wonder Frederick survived at all. In fact, in his youth he believed for a time he would be executed for desertion from the restrictive, even brutal royal close. Not surprisingly an admirer of French culture (his father had laid about with an ever-present cane at the mention of France), Frederick was a strenuous admirer of Voltaire and their uneasy relationship throughout the years reflected the formidable strengths and tetchy vanities of both. Frederick was not fond of the company of women (there is no exhaustive scrutiny of his sexual proclivities here) and perhaps bis favorite females were his sister Wilhelmine and the tough old adversary, Maria Teresa of Hungary. ("He had fought her but had never been her enemy.") Frederick's literary output (including the "anti-Machiavellian" treatise on government, philosophy and military sciences) his compositions and performances on the flute, his interest in education are not really scrutinized here with any fascinated attention and this is more of an accounting than a portrait. However, with 48 pages of color plates, 130 halftones, this will probably shadow the Sun King's path.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1970
ISBN: 009952886X
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 2024 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.
