The necessary specifics first (before you flinch at the one with the dollar sign above) — this is a coffee-table-shaped photovisual presentation of Marilyn including some 100 photographs (full page, black and white or color) representing the work of 24 major photographers. That aside, it is also a full length if free-form story of her life as nearly as it can be known — perhaps it never will be — so many inventions, including her own, abound. Marilyn was "every man's love affair with America." Mailer's too even if in the beginning you may be more conscious of him than his subject, or love object: Mailer with his endless "factoids" (a word all his own meaning emanations from the media); Mailer with his ripe persimmon prose ("an avowal of a womb fairly salivating in seed") sometimes turning to high on the hog ("and blows his nose to get the sexual gunk of the night before out of his nostril hairs"); Mailer hypothecating as guru on almost anything from psychoanalysis which he deplores to some of its speculation which he takes advantage of; Mailer as Mailer. But in time Marilyn appropriates the book beyond any question — her shyness and vulnerability, her slovenliness, her undimmable expectancy, her variability, her creativity and artistic taste. And in time, particularly when time runs out, Mailer's writing becomes cleaner, sharper, stronger, catching the desperate downdrift of the last years from success to failures, from Greene to Miller to Sinatra, from nembutals to chloral hydrate — certainly the sad facts need no reiteration here. The dazzling transaction that was Marilyn is all that matters and her immanent allure — so hard to isolate or perpetuate — is as palpable as it ever was.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1973
ISBN: 0446718505
Page Count: 381
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1973
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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