This challenging and provocative chronicle of an illness reaches far beyond the author’s symptoms to incorporate the romance of Camille, a child’s abandonment, the body’s relationship to nature and to history, money, poetry, the environment, democracy, and the loss of a certain kind of consciousness. Griffin (The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender, and Society, 1995, etc.) has been called “a great visionary” by some critics; she clearly has a vision, but one that resembles a Moebius strip more than a straight line. For instance, she argues that the body, as well as the mind, retains both personal and social history. So-called psychosomatic disease is not the body acting out the mind’s repression, but a teamwork approach as it were, as the body “thought, felt, and expressed everything that my mind did.” But, Griffin points out, insurance won’t pay for a psychosomatic diagnosis. This was of no little consequence to her, since her diagnosis, CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome), a true viral infection with debilitating symptoms, bore the stigma of the earlier “Yuppie disease,” chronic fatigue syndrome. Unable to work, at times unable even to get out of bed, Griffin envisioned terminal poverty and herself as a victim of the mercantile body, consumed by consumption. Hence, she explores the life of another woman who died from consumption, Marie de Plessis, courtesan extraordinaire (fictionalized by Dumas as the Lady of the Camellias and famously portrayed by Bernhardt, Garbo, and Callas), whose tubercular deterioration paralleled Griffin’s own decline. Her survey of Camille’s history in Paris also opens inquiries into shame, medical care, money, and death, and loops back at last to the author’s alcoholic mother. Narrative chapters are interspersed with poetic stanzas. Close reading of this deceptively simple itinerary from Berkeley to Paris is required; stay with it—an extraordinary number of ideas from, birth to earth, are plowed and seeded.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-251435-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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