They came, they saw, they commemorated. O'Brian, a British translator and writer (H.M.S. Surprise, 1973) who—like so many others—knew Picasso in his later years, presents a detailed account of the artist's movement, activities, mistresses, friends, domiciles, and living and working habits from childhood on. His life is the fullest so far, but it cannot pass as authoritative; O'Brian elects to give no sources for this "popular biography," making it virtually impossible to weigh his claims against others. Stress is laid on Picasso's Spanish origins and Catalan connection, always maintained; on his strong friendships, especially with Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Aluard; on the trouble his many women caused him; and, after World War II, on the price of his fame (he was imprisoned "within his own myth"). These emphases apart, O'Brian has no point of view toward his subject and—lip service to Picasso's blithe spirit notwithstanding—little apparent empathy for him. His knowledge of art seems to be that of a practiced viewer. The course of Picasso's work is traced and—in lieu of illustrations—certain important works are described; the literal descriptions suffice to call a familiar painting or sculpture to mind, but they hardly provide the verbal equivalent of visual exposure. O'Brian, moreover, has a penchant for relating the work—again quite literally—to the public and private record; but beyond reporting the flowering on canvas of one after another mistress, he is often stymied: some of the brightest paintings appear in the worst of times. To the extent that it can be trusted, the book is informative; but as reading matter it almost makes one long for the heroic days of Irving Stone.
Pub Date: May 28, 1976
ISBN: 0393311074
Page Count: 516
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1976
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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