Customer Reviews:
Pure Bond.......2007-10-05
The Bond books are always fun and easy to read. They appeal to the adventure, gadget, and sex side to all men. It also often amazes me that women are interested in watching the movies, but I have yet to find a woman reader of the Fleming books. This book deals with Voodoo but is greatly aged when talking about gang activity and black culture. So, don't be surprised by a few nasty words here and there.
The Return of James Bond.......2007-08-26
One of the distinctive characteristics of the James Bond movies has always been the opening credit sequence. Over the years, a number of big name artists have done songs for the openings, some of which have been memorable (such as Goldfinger or The Spy Who Loved Me) and others that are completely forgotten (can anyone but a true Bond aficionado remember the opening song in On Her Majesty's Secret Service?). If there is a truly immortal Bond tune, however - one that still gets plenty of playing time even three decades after the movie - it is Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die. The song may be well-remembered, but what of the book that inspired it? It may be one that many wish was best forgotten.
I say this not because it is a bad book; it is actually decent enough, but it has a view of race that is, to put it kindly, rather antiquated. The story sends Bond to New York to assist in stopping the crime boss and SMERSH operative, Mr. Big. Mr. Big is a large black man who - through his appearing as the voodoo figure Baron Samedi - appears to hold sway over most of the blacks on the East Coast and the Caribbean.
Bond teams up with his CIA friend Felix Leiter and the battle with Mr. Big is on, going from New York to Florida to Jamaica. Mr. Big's plot involves the smuggling of old gold coins from a pirate treasure as part of a plot to fund crime and Communism. Since it is a Bond story, there is a beautiful woman too, in this case, the fortune-telling Solitaire who Mr. Big intends to marry whether she likes it or not. Bond has other ideas.
I don't know if I'd go as far as to call this book racist, as Fleming doesn't seem to look upon blacks with contempt or believe they only merit a second-class place in society. He nonetheless resorts to stereotypes and treats the race as almost a monolithic unit. Of course, this is a fifty year old novel written before the Civil Rights movement really kicked into gear, and Fleming is a product of his time and place. What may have been relatively common writing at the time is now dated and may be unpleasant to many readers.
Still, in its context, this is a decent enough novel, rating a low four stars. The Bond of the first novel, Casino Royale, wasn't involved in much actual action, but here the bullets are flying and bombs are exploding. Already in the second novel, Bond is becoming more of the superheroic spy, although he is still human enough. If you are a fan on the Bond novels, then this is worth reading, but for a casual thriller fan, this might be one to skip.
Super Reader.......2007-08-04
Bond becomes more interested in Mr. Big, head of a voodoo operation in the Carribean, after he learns that he is working for SMERSH. He sees an opportunity to exact a bit of payback for the events of the previous book. It seems that Mr. Big may have found the pirate treasure of Captain Henry Morgan, and is using that for operational purposes.
He also gets to work with Felix Leiter, from the CIA. Mr. Big has a fortune teller that is a true psychic, named Solitaire. A beautiful girl, she works out what the two agents are up to, and they end up captured. Eventually they escape, and as Solitaire is a beautiful girl, Bond takes her too.
Felix Leiter is severely mauled by a shark.
That is not the finale, as Bond and Solitaire are captured again, and dragged behind a boat, designed to slowly bleed to death as coral and other sea things cut them. The bad guys wouldn't be sad if blood attracted sharks to eat 'em, either.
Another Great Book in the Series.......2007-06-01
If you enjoyed Casino Royale, then you will also like the next book in the series, Live and Let Die. I don't know what it was, but I think it is just a little less enjoyable than the first book. The reason being the way that Ian writes for the black characters, it is some times hard to read and understand what they are saying. Trying to get the accent of what all black people talk like, according to him, makes some of the lines unreadable. Such as, it will say something like 'I dun no bot dis bose' but worse.
Anyway, still a good story overall, but almost completely different from the movie.
Voodoo Bond.......2007-04-29
Live and Let Die is the second book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. I preferred Casino Royale, but this one is certainly a good Bond story. This time 007 is in the United States trying to deal with the dangerous Mr. Big, the leader of a well-organized mob dealing in drugs and smuggling. Bond is helped in his efforts to learn about Mr. Big's operations by the enigmatic and beautiful Solitaire. As was true in Casino Royale, Bond is also aided by Felix Leiter, the indomitable US CIA agent. The story leads from New York to Florida to Jamaica and has an outstanding ending as Bond once again saves the day under extremely perilous circumstances. The characters in the book are well written, but the book's descriptions of African-Americans are particularly dated since the book was written in 1954.
Read the book and enjoy Bond, but this was not Ian Fleming's best effort. Now on to Diamonds are Forever, the third book in the series.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-04
Bond is pretty depressed after the death of his wife. One of M's contemporaries suggests a crazy mission to snap him out of it, so M sends him to Japan.
Tiger Tanaka is head of Japanese Intelligence, and will give Bond what M wants if he will rid them of a local villain called Dr. Shatterhand.
Hiding in a deadly garden, Shatterhand is really Blofeld, living with his assistant.
The girl in this book is Kissy Suzuki, who ends up taking care of Bond after he is injured in a final duel with Blofeld, and loses his memory.
The First Final James Bond Novel.......2007-04-25
I refer to YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE as the "first final 007 novel" because this was the last novel Ian Fleming finished, polished and shipped off to his publisher before his death (I don't think he lived to see it in print). The second final novel was THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and from what I understand, Fleming finished a draft but did not rewrite or polish it before he died of a heart attack.
As his health was fading, Fleming had traveled to Japan and it looks like a lot of that trip wound up in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. It was interesting to me that he chose to research a culture that had such a different outlook on death even as if he own body was fading. The exchanges between James Bond and Tiger Tanaka about the mindset of WWII kamikaze pilot and the honor of hari kari suicides become more interesting when you realize where Fleming was in his life--and where he knew he was soon going.
Fleming had become disenchanted with Bond, having already tried to kill him off at the end of FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE and vowing with each new book to finally destroy his world-famous spy. I only wish that Fleming had spent more time in Bond's head since it read as if all of his inner turmoil was left to M and others to discuss--instead of letting the novel show.
Sent on an "impossible mission" to Japan, 007 meets Dikko Henderson, a big, loud Austrailian, and Tiger Tanaka, the enigmatic head of the Japanese Secret Service. But it's when Tanaka asks Bond as a favor to kill the mysterious "Dr. Shatterhand" in his Castle of Death that the novel gets back some of Fleming's wild flair of dark fun and surrealism. An elusive European has created and hid himself inside a deadly garden of natural poisons and venoms. Deadly snakes and pirhanas infest a forest of poisonous trees and plants--and the Japanese can't get enough of throwing themselves into it to kill themselves! Even Dr. Shatterhand himself is a little perplexed that he has so many visitors regularly killing themselves on his property. Now that's vintage Fleming!
But the end comes somewhat swiftly and neatly. Since I've been rereading all of the James Bond novels in order, I can see where Fleming could relate to 007 as he kept churning out mission after mission: Fleming could use the formula to get Bond out of a jam...but Fleming couldn't get himself out of the formula.
His heart weakening and his life fading, Fleming's writing did shift from the heroic close-calls with doom in the earlier novels to looking Death right in the face in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. You could see the darkness closing in from chapter to chapter and, while James Bond may make another thrilling escape, Ian Fleming could not.
A Must read for fans of the Film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".......2006-05-01
If you are fan of the bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" this is a James Bond book you must read!!!
The bond film series failed to create proper continuity from OHMSS to Diamonds are Forever. This left fans without any concept or feel of the how Bond might react after the tragedy that occured in OHMSS.
Thankfully the novel version of picks up up perfectly from that moment and provides Bond fans with a truly satisfactory conclusion to Bonds fight against SPECTRE.
IAN FLEMINGs Japan and the Devil.......2004-06-18
This is Ian Fleming's most mysterious and enigmatic James Bond novel. This is a direct follow up to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." It starts out as a direct secret service story even though Bond is reassigned to the diplomatic section. As it progresses it becomes almost surrealistic as James Bond tracks down his arch nemesis on the island of Kyushu. This is a very well written and researched novel. The Japanese idioms and depictions of locale are exquisite. When the novel moves to Kuro Island and is on the threshold of Dr. Shaterhand's castle lair, Fleming approaches mythical horizons. I found this absorbing, haunting and prophetic novel very difficult to put down once I started reading it. You get addicted early on to such charismatic characters as Tiger Tanaka and the all too brief Dikko Henderson but it is the narrative of this epic tale that beckons the reader. The new retro-paperback cover is alluring.
Not quite the film legend.......2004-06-05
Bondo-san? Sounds like a Japanese brand adhesive.
I've seen several of the 007 films with a wide range of actors - Connery, Moore, and Brosnan. However, this is the first Bond book by Ian Fleming that I've ever read. I'm left marveling at the liberties taken by Hollywood with the hero. Is this truly Bond - JAMES Bond - the Suave Super Stud Super Spy of the Big Screen?
In YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the redoubtable Commander is about to be fired by "M" for a recently unacceptable job performance brought on by the murder of the former's wife. (There was a Mrs. 007?!) But "M" is persuaded by the house shrink to send his agent on one more mission - one that will be touted as so impossible that James will be challenged enough to snap out of his funk. So, off Bond goes to Japan to persuade the head of that nation's Secret Service to share information from a key Soviet source - information only otherwise being shared with the CIA. Bond befriends the Japanese spymaster, "Tiger" Tanaka, who consents to the new arrangement if 007 will carry out a special and very dangerous assignment.
Relative to the Bond movies, I liked the in-print character much better; he's less of a comic book hero and more real. And there's not an improbable high-tech gadget in sight. However, that being said, Fleming's original 007 is much less developed and complex than, say, the Quiller persona created by Adam Hall (the nom de plume of Elleston Trevor) during the 60s and 70s. Quiller was a lonely, scarred, and bloody-minded agent who, when sent off on a perilous mission, managed make it alive out of the dodgy spots - whether it was being chased by attack dogs across the no-man's land of the East German border or bundled unceremoniously into the Lubyanka basement - purely on luck, innate ability, and pure survival sense. Quiller didn't even carry a gun. And Quiller had the hint of a secret life, perhaps one in the past; his will on file with the Secret Service specified that roses should be sent to "Moira" in the event of his death. And the reader never found out who Moira was during the entire Quiller series of nineteen books. Bond, on the other hand, just doesn't run that deep. Indeed, Quiller would think 007 a poofter dilettante.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, as an example of Fleming's source material for the Bond cinematic legend, is perhaps only of interest if you want to see the tenor of the original character before the Tinseltown scriptwriters got hold of him. Take my advice and discover Quiller if you haven't already.
Book Description
Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner in Armistead Maupin's classic Tales of the City series, is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contem-porary fiction. Now, almost twenty years after ending his ground-breaking saga of San Francisco life, Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero, letting the fifty-five-year-old gardener tell his story in his own voice.
Having survived the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers, Michael has learned to embrace the random pleasures of life, the tender alliances that sustain him in the hardest of times. Michael Tolliver Lives follows its protagonist as he finds love with a younger man, attends to his dying fundamentalist mother in Florida, and finally reaffirms his allegiance to a wise octogenarian who was once his landlady.
Though this is a stand-alone novel—accessible to fans of Tales of the City and new readers alike—a reassuring number of familiar faces appear along the way. As usual, the author's mordant wit and ear for pitch-perfect dialogue serve every aspect of the story—from the bawdy to the bittersweet. Michael Tolliver Lives is a novel about the act of growing older joyfully and the everyday miracles that somehow make that possible.
Customer Reviews:
a must.......2007-10-11
Fascinating for those who read Tales of the City and its follow-ons. The characters that virtually became part of our circle of friends grew wiser.....and so did we...
A nice return to a semi-Tales novel.......2007-10-07
They say everything gets better with age.
But in the world of homosexuality, where an obsession with perfect looks, body and clothes is a contact sport (and the same goes for world, really, but I think its more prevalent with us gays) , most young gays would like nothing to do with anyone older than say 25. And heaven forbid you even think that they have sex.
When Armistead Maupin began his Tales of The City series for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, I'm sure no one thought how important the stories of Michael, Brian, Mary Ann, Mona and Mrs Madrigal would become. It was then, the first chronicle of modern gay life, filled with the joys and pains of being who you are and accepted by your "logical" family instead of your biological one. Maupin would eventually write five novels based on those stories from the newspaper, centering on the characters who live at 28 Barbary Lane. A sixth novel was published in 1989.
The cultural impact of those books fed a generation of gay men and women already living in the era, plus the ones who came after, which was I, when I started reading them around 1987-88. Of course, I knew about them before I picked up the first book, but until I got a bit older and finally accepted who I was did I want to read them.
With Sure of You, the sixth book in the series published in 1989, we left our characters coping with problems the 1980's brought on: AIDS and the rise of the conservative movement. Now, Maupin -who had wanted to do a novel about aging gay men and how they fit within the current fixation that after the age of 25 in gay life, you might as well as never go out again - found the perfect voice to do it in, good old Mouse.
Michael Tolliver Lives, is in many ways -like all of Maupin's Tales books - semi-autobiographical. Michael is 55, HIV positive and now married to Ben, who is 21-years younger than him. In real life, Maupin has the same arraignment.
The novel itself is wonderfully written -and to be honest, you don't have to read the previous 6 books in the series (even though Maupin says this book is not the seventh volume), as he gives updates on all the characters. The author's talent has aged well, and he gets across the message that just because you are, say in your 50's, you can still be attracted to men younger than you.
After all, straight men have been doing for years, marrying women as much as 30 years younger than they are. So, I guess, there is hope for me.
autumnal.......2007-10-06
This postscript to the Tales of the City series of novels is a delight.
There's abundant warmth, wit and wisdom. There's only a scant plot but that scarcely matters, and it's cleverly resolved at the end.
True, it's not a sequel.
Unlike the others, this is a first person narrative. Not all the previous cast are present or accounted for.
The focus is squarely on Michael Tolliver, now known as Mouse only to the grown up Shawna. Many of us must have feared that Michael must have died fairly soon after the sixth novel concluded. This novel is a hymn of praise to his survival, to his marriage and to what remains of his self chosen, "logical" [as opposed to biological] family.
There's an autumnal sadness here, with the inevitablities of ageing, the probable fragility of sexual attraction and the passage of time since the golden seventies. It's a far harsher political climate, too. Much of Maupin's devastating humour is aimed at right wing fundamentalists,and not only for their denial of civil rights to gays.
This could probably be read as a stand alone novel but I would not recommend it. So much in the earlier works resonates even more fully with the retrospective benefit of Michael's mature perspective. Moreover, anyone who reads this first and then progresses to the other novels will find their enjoyment a little compromised because they know more than they should.
So - anyone who has not yet read Maupin's marvelous sequence of novels should end, not start, here.
Remembered Perfume.......2007-10-03
When I was in my early 20s, the TALES OF THE CITY books were a great companion on my road to self-discovery. Maupin did such a good job in creating warm, flawed, and lovable characters that, with each book, I felt like I stepped into their lives and had the privilege to live with the characters for a while. MICHAEL TOLLIVER LIVES is no exception. This is one of those rare books I hated to close the cover on for the final time because it was such a joy being with these people again...and such a joy to experience their mostly middle-aged lives (about which I am more than familiar). This was a great, tug-at-the-heartstrings read that never resorted to sentimentality. If you enjoyed the TALES books, you must read this. If you haven't, well, start at the beginning and work your way up. You're in for a rare treat.
Visiting old friends.......2007-09-28
I loved the Tales of the City series. WOW 20 years later and I still can't get enough. I am very grateful to Mr. Maupin. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.
Customer Reviews:
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
A really popular character such as Elektra, especially one who has done the horizontal ninja mambo with Matt Murdoch is not too likely to stay dead permanently.
At leas they gave Miller a crack at it when bringing her back, but still, not as good as before.
Vigilante opus, Modern Greek tragedy and Irish Catholic morality play.......2007-01-02
Daredevil and his immortal love get the Frank Miller (and Lynn Varley)'s Dark Knight treatment. It larger than life, surreal and quite violent. But at the heart of it is Matt Murdoch's love for the fiery greek warrior that refuses to die or be tamed. Even if you only see the red devil outfit for a few small panels, you don't miss it. You know DD is all over these bleeding, tear filled and wonderfully suffering pages. As always, you have to feel for poor Matt Murdoch. Also, Bullseye is there, as no DD-Elektra tale can be complete without getting him into the action in a very meaningful way. A visceral, visual experiernce, somewhat disjointed (in a good kind of way, a la Blade Runner). Gives deep meaning to the term "graphic novel".
A thrilling adventure.......2004-06-02
This Elektra TPB is well written and drawn.
The story seems like it is out of continuty and also the art seems really dream like and surreal.
I recommend this to any Elektra enthusiast. And read this so you can be informed for the Elektra movie.
Miller Just Misses.......2003-01-19
Frank Miller, often considered one of the great modern comic storytellers, is best known for his Batman epic "The Dark Knight Returns" However, Miller returns to his roots by doing some work on Elektra and Daredevil, where he first got started in the comic industry.
Everyone knows that Elektra is dead. She was murdered by the deadly Bullseye, impaled upon her own sai (You can see the awesome battle in Miller's 'Daredevil Visionaries: Volume 2'). When Matt Murdock, Elektra's college boyfriend and the blind superhero known as Daredevil, begins to have eerie dreams of her rising from her grave, he becomes unnerved. Is Elektra back? And why? He discovers that one of his old enemies may be revived, deadlier than ever...
I enjoyed this book mostly because it was written out of the comics continuity, so you don't have to get bogged down in the chronology to understand it. The story is told from Matt Murdock/Daredevil's point of view, which is good to see, because I don't remember many of Miller's older Daredevil works being told from this perspective. This book only gets 4 stars because I was hoping for a lot more (The book is oversized and is just 75 pages long). It seems as though Miller could have written a lot more, but chose instead to make this book more 'choppy' for a more psychological effect. It didn't really work too well.
In summation, 'Elektra Lives Again' is a good book, and Frank Miller is still one of the best in the industry, but it isn't as good as his early run on Daredevil. The art is impressive and the plot interesting, but Miller fails to capitalize on what could have been an immaculate triumph of a story. Instead, he leaves many blank spots and tries to let you fill in the rest. If you're a big Daredevil or Elektra fan, you'll want to read this, but be forewarned - you may be let down.
A non-continuity exercise in self-indulgence........2002-04-05
I don't know if Miller intended this as a story in which Elektra would actually be revived--if he did, he mucked with Marvel continuity way too much to make it work.
For me, the book gets 3 stars because of Miller's excellent draftsmanship and storytelling, and Varley's dynamic colors. Miller's work didn't look this good again until 300 was released.
But the story is just not there, for me. Miller indulges himself in a personal exploration of isolation and despair with Matt Murdock (Daredevil) spending an enormous amount of time watching and waiting for an outside force (Elektra) to show up and make him whole again.
Now while I've always liked Murdock's particular flavor of angst--more than anyone in the Marvel Universe, the blind guy in the too-loud world should be entitled to brood--he just comes off as thoroughly helpless in this story. Maybe that's what Miller wanted, that sort of flailing desperation, but it didn't play for me. I've read the story a number of times, hoping to "get it," but it always comes up short for me.
04/22/02 - I just reread this yesterday, and my opinion is unchanged. The last 20+ seem to lose track of what the first 40+ pages are about. The action is striking, but only the most obvious of story's questions are answered. Ths story yearns to be substantial but ends up superficial, and some of us prefer SOLID chocolate bunnies at Easter.
This one's good for Miller completists, but if you want a really ripping Frank Miller Elektra story, I recommend Elektra: Assassin, his brilliant, funny collaboration with Bill Sienkiewicz.
Amazon.com
One might think that the climax of the 10-volume Sandman series would come in the last book, or even the second to last. But indeed the heart and soul of Neil Gaiman's magnum opus lies here in Brief Lives. It could be because one of the most central mysteries--that of the Sandman's missing brother--is revealed here (in fact, the plot of this volume is the search for this member of the Endless). It could be because everything that comes after this volume, however surprising or unexpected, is inevitable. But it's more because this is a story about mortality and loss, the difficulty of change, the purpose of remembering, the purpose of forgetting, and the importance of humanity. If you have wanted to find out what all the good buzz on this great comic book series is about and haven't read any Gaiman before, don't be turned off by this volume's pivotal position in the larger story of the Sandman series. This book might actually operate better as a stand-alone story, in that its depth and compassion are more condensed, pure, and brief. --Jim Pascoe
Book Description
One might think that the climax of the 10-volume Sandman series would come in the last book, or even the second to last. But indeed the heart and soul of Neil Gaiman's magnum opus lies here in Brief Lives. It could be because one of the most central mysteries--that of the Sandman's missing brother--is revealed here (in fact, the plot of this volume is the search for this member of the Endless). It could be because everything that comes after this volume, however surprising or unexpected, is inevitable. But it's more because this is a story about mortality and loss, the difficulty of change, the purpose of remembering, the purpose of forgetting, and the importance of humanity. If you have wanted to find out what all the good buzz on this great comic book series is about and haven't read any Gaiman before, don't be turned off by this volume's pivotal position in the larger story of the Sandman series. This book might actually operate better as a stand-alone story, in that its depth and compassion are more condensed, pure, and brief. --Jim Pascoe
Customer Reviews:
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Dream is sulking, until his sister Delirium motivates him to help her look for Destruction, their brother who has abdicated his Endless responsibilities.
On the way, through the various people they meet, and reflected in his servants and helpers, we see Dream's thought processes begin to change and mellow, even more so after he finally gets around to dealing with his son, Orpheus, after such long neglect.
"If this isn't literature, nothing is." --Peter Straub.......2007-07-30
This is one of my two favorites in the 11-volume "Sandman" series, which has proven Gaiman to be a genius storyteller. Three centuries ago, Destruction -- one of the seven Endless, who existed even before the gods -- abandoned his responsibilities, left his realm, and went off to do his own thing. Essentially, he ran away from home. Not that the world has lacked for destruction since then, but he's not behind it, anyway. Delirium, who has roughly the persona of a three-year-old combined with a drugged-out-flower child -- but is a very sweet person for all that (well, . . . not "person" . . .), misses her big brother and tries to find one of her siblings to help her look for him and convince him to return. Dream (the Sandman) finally agrees to accompany her, but for his own reasons, and the quest brings in a number of innocent bystanders (who suffer, as bystanders do), as well as an assortment of ancient but now out-of-work deities. A number of neat ideas are tossed out casually, too, like the notion that a few thousand people still exist on Earth from the very earliest days of civilization, or even from the dawn of the species.
Bernie the lawyer, killed by the collapsing wall of a derelict building, tells Death, "I did okay, didn't I? I lived fifteen thousand years. That's a pretty long time." To which Death, a pragmatic sort who resembles a Goth girl, replies, "You got what everybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more, no less." Great stuff.
A must read.......2007-06-27
Read this series! I read these when they were published as individual comics and revisiting the series has been a joy. Read them in order if at all possilble. I wish Gaiman had the time to write another graphic novel series.
It's going to be a beautiful day..........2006-12-28
Did anyone other than myself get addicted to this series due grossly in part to Gaiman's amazing work with his novel "American Gods"? I thought "American Gods" reminded me of King's phenomenal work with Roland in his gunslinger world - and finally, Gaiman expanded on this work with the next chapter of his Sandman stories in "Brief Lives". It seems that I continually go up then down and further up again with this series, and this is one of those chapters that shot me further up into the sky than imaginable. With a fair swoop of his creative pen, Gaiman brings us family, voyages, and the truth about those pesky little creatures roaming our world known as Gods. They do exist. They roam our world. They were here before the birth of this planet, and finally, Gaiman exposes them to the world. They are merciless, they are wealthy, they are strippers ... they are us. Again, nobody could do it like Gaiman does and he proves it with his greatest heroine creation "the Sandman" and with the series entitled, "Brief Lives".
For the past several episodes, Gaiman has been dropping hints that Sandman had a missing brother that left the family a long time ago, there was sadness, but most were moving away from any sort of emotional scarring. Well, I should say "most", because little sister Delirium cannot seem to forget about her big brother. She wants to find him, and while most of her other siblings turn her away, Sandman jumps in headfirst in hopes that he can eliminate the worries about loosing a woman that he has been with for some time. He needs to shake her feelings, so he travels with his sister to find their brother, Destruction. As they travel, they meet up with old friends, Gods, which assist with their journey. These friends of the family assist with unlimited spending cash, a chauffeured vehicle, and a path towards their final destination. While our travelers decide to stay in the "real world", they learn more about the dying breed of Gods and, my favorite, that Death does not show favoritism.
Just as we prepare ourselves for a two part episode, an unexpected guest (who is actually expecting them) welcomes our travelers into his home, only to share his disappointment with his current state of the world as well as his position. In a rather emotional ending, Gaiman twists his words together to point the finger back at our current society as well as the state of this series. He even takes Sandman closer to his family, and asks him to perform a deed that was unexpected as this journey began. In one quick collection of stories, Gaiman has successfully given us back the power, the force, and the drama that reminded me of how this series began. Since the first collection, I didn't quite see that same emotion until I read "Brief Lives". In a short 150 pages, the raw force of the series was sparked back. The family dynamics, the power of the unknown, and the idea that our world - planet Earth - is just the backdrop to a much larger grandiose story that will constantly boggle our mind and expand our universe - was exactly what made this "Brief Lives" the best collaboration.
Overall, I would like to say that if you read just one collaboration in this series YOU MUST READ "Brief Lives". I fell in love with this entire family all over again this in one short collection. We had a chance to see their lives, their human nature, and their need for each other. I loved being back with Sandman, in which I missed him with the prior collection. He is the star and full supporter of these graphic novels. Gaiman, I believe, realizes this as he receives most of his praise for those in which he blows our minds with simple stories with amazingly sharp characters. There was not one flawed scene in this entire collection. I could - and will - read this again. For those seeking Gaiman's best work, and what makes him stronger than the words that he prints - I would highly suggest "Brief Lives".
There - I have drooled enough. Time to read it again.
Grade: ***** out of *****
One of the series' best........2005-11-30
Neil Gaiman, Sandman: Brief Lives (Vertigo, 1995)
Sandman has had its ups and downs over the years. Brief Lives is very much an up, perhaps second in the series only to Dream Country in its brilliance.
Brief Lives tells the story of Dream and Delirium, off to search for their missing brother Destruction, who abandoned his realm three centuries before. As they search, the people they try to get to help them have a startling habit of ending up dead, leaving Dream to question the wisdom of Delirium's quest.
The book ties up a few minor loose ends from other books in the past, but that's just icing on the cake. Gaiman and co. stick with a simple story here, perhaps the simplest they've yet told in the books, and in doing so they truly allow Gaiman's considerable narrative talents to shine through undiluted. We already know we're going to get good art and great characters. The story's the thing, then, and this one shines. **** ½
Average customer rating:
- Two Lives - really such a good read?
- An expansive story...
- Another good book from Vikram Seth
- A remarkable work
- Coping with loss
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Two Lives: A Memoir
Vikram Seth
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Suite Francaise
ASIN: 0060599677
Release Date: 2006-06-13 |
Book Description
Widely acclaimed as one of the world's greatest living writers, Vikram Seth -- author of the international bestseller A Suitable Boy -- tells the heartrending true story of a friendship, a marriage, and a century. Weaving together the strands of two extraordinary lives -- Shanti Behari Seth, an immigrant from India who came to Berlin to study in the 1930s, and Helga Gerda Caro, the young German Jewish woman he befriended and later married -- Two Lives is both a history of a violent era seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate, unforgettable portrait of a complex, abiding love.
Customer Reviews:
Two Lives - really such a good read?.......2007-09-18
The book was recommended to me and after reading a review about it, I was really keen to finally read it. The first two parts of the book were coming up to my expectations, but I found it difficult to follow the events and persons of part III. Reading all those letters is exhausting and finally boring. All those introductions and ends of letters carry so much unnecessary information, it fills the pages of this book, but in fact interrupts the flow of the story. Even if the rest of the book makes up for some of the draw-backs of the letter-dominated part, all in all I was rather disappointed.
An expansive story..........2007-01-21
told through amazingly good writing. I had never read anything by Vikram Seth, but thought this story sounded interesting, which indeed it is. The other posters have really summed up the brilliance and the breadth of the story of Shanti Uncle and Henny Caro in their reviews. There's really nothing to add.
Another good book from Vikram Seth.......2007-01-11
After reading A Suitable Boy, I was hooked on Vikram Seth.
I found this book interesting and informative. It was a personal look at the way WWII shaped the lives of two very different people. I also enjoyed the autobiographical information on Seth. He is an excellent writer and a bright guy. I find his observations are insightful.
A remarkable work.......2006-12-17
This deeply researched and often highly moving memoir traces two small private lives, and in the course of this reveals to us an important chapter in world- history. Indian born writer Vikram Seth at the age of seventeen was sent to London to study. He stayed at the house of his dentist uncle Shanti, and Shanti's wife German- Jewish refugee Henny. Seth brilliantly and warmly relates the story of that time, of how he with the aid of his aunt Henny learned German, and how he later came to investigate their lives. To my mind the most interesting part of the book is the letters of his aunt to her friends and family in German, and later in various parts of the world. Part of the story here is the loss of Henny's family, the death of her mother in Thereseinstadt and the murder of her sister in Auschwitz.
Seth also tells the story of the courting and relationship of Shanti and Heddy. He speaks of a love which was not outwardly romantic, but based on mutual respect and consideration. The couple courted for seven years before marrying when they both were forty- three. They did not have children and clearly when Seth lived there he was a kind of substitute- child. He rewarded their dedication to him an affection with an affection and dedication of his own in writing their story.
Seth conncects their stories not only with their own extended family's stories but with the history of their time and even this time.
I was very much impressed by the great care Seth takes in exploring even minor aspects of their character and story. One of the consequences of his research was that he in a sense knew more about them after their lives than in their lifetime. And surprisingly he may have known more about them than each in some ways knew of the other.
I do have one strong objection to the work based on one page in it. In that Seth shows a misunderstanding of the whole enterprise of modern Israel. Because he dealt exclusively with assimilated and assimilating Jews in this work, including Hetty he did not have a real understanding of the centrality of return to Israel in Jewish historical experience. I would too have expected him who so closely, carefully documented stories of the Holocaust to understand that Israel exists in the mind of many Jews as the one place in the world where they could at least ideally be wholly at home and protected. This when the whole world rejected the overwhelming majority of Jews who would have escaped from Nazism and the death- chambers.
Nonetheless I wish to repeat that this is a remarkable work and highly recommended. It gives much on many different levels, most of which I have not been able to indicate in this small review. It is a master work and I am sure that each and every one of its readers will be humanly enriched by it.
Coping with loss.......2006-10-21
The Two Lives of the title are those of the author's great-uncle, the Indian-born Shanti and of his Jewish German-born wife Henny, both born in 1908. They were living in London when 17-year-old Vikram arrived there in 1969 from Calcutta to go to school at Tonbridge; and they remained his base in England until their deaths in 1998 and 1989 respectively, for they were like parents to him, rejoicing in his academic and authorial achievements, and he loved them dearly. Most of the first 50 pages of the book give a charming account of their intimate relationship.
After Henny's death in 1989, Vikram took up the idea of writing the biography of Shanti. He interviewed the then 85 year old for this purpose in eleven lengthy sessions during 1994. Henny had never wanted to talk about the past - even to Shanti she never referred to the deaths of her mother and sister in Nazi camps - , and Vikram knew never to ask her about it; but in 1995 there was found, tucked away in a corner of Shanti's attic, a cabin trunk which Henny had brought with her when she left Germany in 1939. It contained a mass of papers and photographs from which Vikram was able to reconstruct her earlier life and her first few years in England in as much detail as he he had gleaned in the interviews with Shanti about his early years; and that enabled him to expand his book into a dual biography. Even Shanti did not know of the trunk or of much that it revealed of his wife's earlier life and thoughts.
Financed by an elder brother from India, Shanti had come to Europe in 1931 to study dentistry. These studies were too expensive in London, so he had gone to Berlin, having at that time no German at all. One of his landladies there was Ella Caro, Henny's mother. He qualified with distinction in 1936, but then found that as a foreigner he was not allowed to practise as a dentist in Nazi Germany. (He does not otherwise seem to have felt much affected by the atmosphere there since 1933). So he left for Edinburgh, where he had to re-qualify. After that he began to practise in London.
Back in Berlin, the Caro family was suffering all the discrimination that the Nazis unleashed against the Jews. A month before the outbreak of war, Henny was able to come to England, sponsored by the distinguished Arab scholar Arthur J. Arberry. She had to leave her mother, her sister and her half-Jewish fiancé behind.
When the war broke out, Shanti joined the Army Dental Corps. The correspondence between him and Henny is now very loving, especially on his side: his letters suggest that he may already have proposed to her, and that she had neither rejected or accepted him. She had already learnt that her fiancé had become engaged to a Christian girl.
In 1944 he found himself in Italy at Monte Cassino, where a shell hit him and he lost his right fore-arm. After the war, back in England, he was able, remarkably, to continue practising as a dentist.
Henny in the meantime had had to come to terms with the news she received after the war that her mother and sister had died (the mother in Theresienstadt, the sister in Auschwitz-Birkenau). Her former fiancé was trying to resume contact with her; but she had been told (probably falsely) that he had professed enthusiasm for Hitler. She brusquely rejected further correspondence, as she rejected similar efforts from other former friends who had behaved badly during the war. But she sent Care parcels to those of her now needy friends in devastated Germany of whose faithfulness she felt sure. Yet even in those cases, she had struggles with herself when she came to learn of compromising incidents of omission or commission: her very best friend, for instance, was married to a former member of the Nazi Party even if he may not have been, as one letter had told her, a Storm Trooper.
The correspondence between Henny (she kept carbon copies of many of her letters) and her friends in Germany is fascinating. It paints such vivid pictures of the moral dilemmas just described, both for Henny and for her friends, and also of the terrible conditions in the immediate post-war years in Germany, in the Western as well as in the Soviet-controlled Eastern Zones.
Shanti and Henny had been what we now call `an item' for a whole five years after Shanti had returned to England before he proposed to her, and another two years before they actually married in 1951, both aged 43. As a work of art, the book ought perhaps to have stopped there; and I found the last 130 pages or so something of an anti-climax. For after that time, there were no more dramatic or exotic aspects to their lives. They no longer interacted with world events or with different cultures. Though Vikram continues to explore their personalities and the nature of their relationship to each other, the account is less interesting than that of their earlier lives. Their declining years of ill health are then described in considerable detail and - Shanti's especially, which was accompanied with mental senility - at great length. Like some senile people, Shanti used the one power that was left to him to sow family discord with his Will - a rather sordid story told, in my opinion, at excessive length at practically the end of the book. A pity, that.
Book Description
An award-winning, internationally acclaimed Chinese bestseller, originally banned in China but recently named one of the last decade’s ten most influential books there,
To Live tells the epic story of one man’s transformation from the spoiled son of a rich landlord to an honorable and kindhearted peasant.
After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of flinty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.
Customer Reviews:
Powerful story of human struggles.......2007-03-22
Powerfully moving and engaging. One cannot help but respect the dignity with which the protagonist handles the numerous tragedies and struggles in his life. It makes us reflect on life itself and appreciate each moment of our short existence.
To Live........2006-11-26
I have read the book in both languages and I must say the original version is much more stunning.
Many see this book as critical of the Chinese government, which it is in some ways, but the human courage remains the central theme. Historic background is only background. The the evils of the Cultural Revolution is widely known in China as well as other historical backgrounds in the book. All I want is for readers to read this book as an individual, looking into the pain and suffering of other individual, instead from an Western ideology, American national narritive point of view.
The book is touching as a human epic.
To Live - An Amazing Book.......2006-01-23
"To Live" is a book that's hard to explain. The writing, at first, seems overly simplistic, but as you read, you find yourself carried along by the narrators unvarnished description of events. "To Live" is a book that will make you cry. I finished it in two days, and afterwards I felt like I was a mute, waiting for everything to sink in. That's the mark of an amazing book. Like all of Yu Hua's books, "To Live" is a story that sticks with you long after you close the covers and put it on your shelf.
Be warned though, "To Live" not a book for the faint of heart. This book hits you in the gut. If you don't mind a little literary pain, then "To Live" is more than worth it.
No Limiting Man's Will to Survive.......2005-11-29
To Live is a "transformation" novel as much as it is historical fiction. Fugui "transforms" from self-indulgent capriciousness to loyal husband and father in a short but oftentimes dragging 1993 novel famous all over the world and was the basis for a Zhang Yimou classic. Originally banned in China, this profoundly moving novel was transitioned into a movie in 1994. To Live has since been taunted as one of the most influential works of literature to come out of modern China.
As a short synopsis, the novel is set around the turbulent time of the Cultural Revolution. The book (unlike the movie) begins with narrator Fugui describing his happy-go-lucky life as a womanizer and gambler to a very intent listener (who remains nameless). Fugui loses everything - up to the extent of the family estate. What ensues is a tragic story and a tale of man's (and women's) will "to live." Fugui is transported all over the place and survives the consecutive deaths of: Youquing, his 13-year-old son; Fengxia, his beautiful deaf-mute daughter; Jiazhen, his wife, Erxi, his son-in-law; and Kugen, seven-year-old grandson. One of the more memorable musings on death is outlined below: "After Long Er was executed, cold chills ran up and down my neck the whole way home. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how close I had come to being in Long Er's shoes. If it hadn't been for my father and me, the two prodigal sons, I would have been the one to be executed. I rubbed my face and arms - they were all okay. I thought, I should have died but didn't. I escaped with my life from the battlefield, and when I cam home Long Er took my place as the fall guy. The graves of my ancestors must have been in the right place." (84-85)
Fugui lived to bury all those he had grown to love and work alongside, and transfer his affection to the aging ox with which he ploughs his shrunken patch of land. Yu Hua, however, takes care to make sure that we see the anger and rage that flourished in the era of the Cultural Revolution: ""We'll be able to make three bombs out of this iron, and all of them are going to be dropped on Taiwan," he proudly declared. "We'll drop one on Chiang Kai-shek's bed, one on his kitchen table and one on his goat shed!"" (118-119)
Though the work can is heartbreaking, it is narrated sardonically but readers pick up on Fugui the survivor. Yu details the grittiness of life under communism as well as the weakness of the human condition than upon the politics behind the given scenarios. This engaging story is one that this reader won't easily forget. In the translator's afterword, we read: "Having grown up near hospitals and operating rooms during modern China's most vicious and chaotic period, Yu Hua has created a fictional reflection of this reality, a world imbued with violence, death, and unspeakable cruelty." (245). A must have for anyone interested in Chinese and Asian studies.
Miguel Llora
Even Kugen is working hard.......2005-10-04
Being that I am living and working in China for the next year or so I've decided that I need to become more familiar with the country's history and literature. Now I am not completely clueless when it comes to Chinese history and literature, but, for the most part, the undergraduate and graduate classes that I have taken that pertain to China concern the centuries before the fall of the Chinese dynastical system of government. While I do enjoy reading the literature and studying the history of this vast time period, I feel that I lack knowledge that pertains to modern Chinese.
Therefore in recent months I've picked up a number of recent Chinese novels and books pertaining to modern China with hope that I can enrich myself during the next several months. Well, Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby and Chun Sue's Beijing Doll, although they are entertaining and give the reader a glimpse of attractive gold diggers and Beijing's underground punk-rock scene, they do not give the reader a foundation on how recent history, Post-1945, or when the Japanese were defeated and driven from China, has affected modern society. However, in their defense, this was not the goal the authors wanted to obtain. Yet, after I picked up and read Yu Hua's To Live, with the desire to read literature with a more historical aspect in mind, my thirst was quenched.
Before I purchased To Live I knew little about its author Yu Hua, but I did know the novel was the basis for Zhang Yimou's movie of the same title. Having been introduced to the novelists Liu Heng, writer of the novella that was the basis of Ju Dou, Su Tong, writer of the novella that was the basis of Raise the Red Lantern, and Mo Yan, writer of the novel that was the basis for Red Sorghum, through Zhang Yimou's films, I believed that I could not go wrong with To Live. I was right. This is a beautiful book.
The novel opens with a nameless first-person narrator telling the reader of his old job that consisted of traveling and collecting folksongs and old stories. The villagers were generally happy to see him and were completely willing to relay stories of their past days. Although he enjoyed their stories, the narrator had yet to find a person who could completely recreate his past. However, after he met an old farmer named Fugui who was busy plowing his fields and kindly coaxing his old ox to work, his desire was satiated.
In his younger days, like his father before him, Fugui had been the epitome of the prodigal son. Spending his days whoring and gambling, Fugui wasted huge amounts of money. However, it seems that he enjoyed himself, doing such things as riding a fat prostitute piggyback and ordering her to take him around town. His father was of course upset, but having been of a similar bent himself during his younger days, he did not protest too much. In the eyes of Jiazhen, his lovely, but pregnant, wife, his mother, and his little girl, Fengxia he could do no wrong. However, when a professional gambler named Long Er made the scene, things truly began to go bad. Fugui had at first been able to pay his debts on the spot, but eventually he had to put everything on credit that eventually resulted in him losing the family's ancestral land to Long Er. The loss of the family's ancestral land was too much for Fugui's father to handle, so he passed away in despair. After Long Er moved into the family home, Fugui moved his family into a ramshackle shack and is forced to rent some land from Long Er. Even though he lost them everything, Fugui's family, now with a son, Youqing, loved him. However, after his mother becomes ill, Fugui goes to town to fetch a doctor, but while he is there, he is forcefully conscripted into the Nationalist Army and is forced to march north to fight the Communists. However, the Communists surround his company, along with many others, and hundreds of soldiers are killed each day. Yet Fugui never fights a Communist. Instead he is too busy fighting his fellow Nationalists for rice and flatbread. Eventually The Communists are victorious and Fugui is allowed to return home. His family is glad to receive him, but he soon learns that his mother has died and Fengxia has gone deaf and mute because of a high fever. Forlorn because he knows if he had been such a Prodigal Son his family would have had money for medicine and doctors, Fugui is shocked when the Communists march into town and execute Long Er as an evil rich landowner. Fugui's life was saved because he had wasted the family's fortune. However, with People's Communes, The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and many other more personal crises over the horizon, maybe it would have been better for Fugui to die as a rich landowner instead of a poor peasant. The last statement might be true for some, but not Fugui. This is where the magic of Yu Hua's novel truly shines. Fuqui's determination "to live" is astounding. It might not be a great life, but he is alive and is determined to make the most of it.
Sad and humorous, Yu Hua's first novel stands as both a testament to life and as an outline that shows how millions suffered from 1945-76. While not pointing blame at anything particular, Yu Hua's novel is definitely a critical piece of literature. To Live depicts the lives of poor peasants whose only desire was to survive, however, in a world in which the old, a geomancer, and the new, a sixteen-year-old female member of the Red Guard, could destroy their lives, even this simple but vital desire was put in danger. The novel is quite gripping and should be read by those interested in modern Chinese history or just fine literature in general..
Average customer rating:
- In Pace with the Land
- Bass just gets better
- Great reading but a little dark
- Friends we wished we had
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The Lives of Rocks
Rick Bass
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0618596747 |
Book Description
This new collection is big in scope, with a broad range of characters and subjects: the title story concerns a woman recovering from cancer; "Pagans" tells, at forty years' distance, of a girl and two boys—one of whom was in love with her—and the dangerous games they played. In "Her First Elk," a woman looks back on her first elk hunt, three years after her father died, and of the two brothers she hunted with, also now dead. These stories, distinguished by their maturity, are narrated by men and women with compelling life tales. Filled with Bass"s hallmark lean and beautiful prose, they are further proof of his mastery of the short fiction form.
Customer Reviews:
In Pace with the Land.......2007-05-16
Rick Bass is a skilled writer of character-driven drama, and his works are defined by how his characters develop via their connections, or lack thereof, with the natural bounty around them. Bass can make this work in surprising ways, particularly via the eccentric personalities and ravaged outdoor environments encountered in "Yazoo" and "Goats." The winning story here is "The Lives of Rocks" in which a hardy woman must admit that she needs help living off the land when she becomes terminally ill, and must work with neighbors who have a different outlook towards nature. One weakness in Bass' writing is that his developments in plot and characterizations are very verbose and languorous, which is a feasible way to illustrate communion with nature, but which some readers might find sluggish and unsatisfying. This weakness all but wrecks "Pagans" and "The Canoeists," in which the plots go nowhere while the characters ponder themselves. And this collection is damaged by the hugely disappointing "Fiber." The disappointment is due to the fact that the story starts very strongly, with an environmental vigilante atoning for past excesses, only to shift abruptly to a non-fiction tirade from Bass in which he blasts certain environmental organizations for not paying more attention to his (adopted) home area in Montana. Bass has a very unique outlook on the human condition and his stories pack a very subtle yet insistent punch. But this collection has a few weaknesses that hold it back from true greatness. [~doomsdayer520~]
Bass just gets better.......2007-02-03
If you liked Rick Bass' earlier writing, this collection will ratchet your appreciation even higher. Along with McGuane, Ivan Doig and the other "Stegner School" of writers, Bass creates a human condition and a sense of place with prose that touches your heart. And with this writing, place moves out of the west with no loss of impact. Sentences garb you and make you reread them just for the sheer pleasue of their compact, lyrical beauty. I just finished it and will reread it for no other reason than to experience it once again.
Great reading but a little dark.......2007-01-18
I've read most of what Rick Bass has written and look forward to anything new that comes out about the Yaak Valley. This collection of stories, mostly short but one long, covers Montana, Texas and maybe a couple other states too. All are worthwhile.
What struck me though was that for the first time I found a common thread of love lost/life lost that I had not noticed before. Maybe it was there in the earlier writings, but I hadn't seen it. This time, in Lives of Rocks, there are some truly heartbreaking scenes, especially in the title story, where what could have been is rather forcefully struck down and replaced by a future that looks to be much more prosaic than the wonderful interactions between the characters that have taken place.
A friend of mine is a full-out supporter of the "bleak is beautiful" concept in novels, to the extent that he is reading Bleak House now and loving it. I have difficulty enjoying bleak novels, and this collection of stories is not bleak, but perhaps somewhat tragic, and as one of the Greek writers I was exposed to in high school said, tragedy allows us to experience emotions that we might not otherwise feel.
This, then, is a collection of stories that is good for you, even though many are sad.
Friends we wished we had.......2006-10-22
Classic Rick Bass. Now of course I read them in South Texas instead of Alaska so stories like "Pagans" really hit me where I live. Always in the Bass stories, I find people I wished I had known and events that I wouldn't have missed. The best characters since "Platte River" are here.
Average customer rating:
- Brilliant
- A Classic Biography
- Best biography in English language in 20th century
- When Irish Eyes Exile
- Prolegomena to Ulysses
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James Joyce (Oxford Lives)
Richard Ellmann
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Paperback
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A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: Unlocking James Joyce's Masterwork
ASIN: 0195033817 |
Amazon.com
Although several biographers have thrown themselves into the breach since this magisterial book first appeared in 1959, none have come close to matching the late Richard Ellmann's achievement. To be fair, Ellmann does have some distinct advantages. For starters, there's his deep mastery of the Irish milieu--demonstrated not only in this volume but in his books on Yeats and Wilde. He's also an admirable stylist himself--graceful, witty, and happily unintimidated by his brilliant subjects. But in addition, Ellmann seems to have an uncanny grasp on Joyce's personality: his reverence for the Irishman's literary accomplishment is always balanced by a kind of bemused affection for his faults. Whether Joyce is putting the finishing touches on Ulysses, falling down drunk in the streets of Trieste, or talking dirty to his future wife via the postal service, Ellmann's account always shows us a genius and a human being--a daunting enough task for a fiction writer, let alone the poor, fact-fettered biographer.
Book Description
Richard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce's life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant.......2007-02-13
For those of you interested in a biography of James Joyce that's as erudite as his works themselves, then Ellmann's "James Joyce" is most definitely for you. This is a product of years of interviews and correspondence with many of Joyce's friends and family members; and Ellmann's love for both the writer and the man radiate through every page. His sections on the key themes and events that inspired both "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake" are invaluable. Moreover, you'll find yourself chuckling a great deal of time, and even shedding a few tears, as I did. My only critique of the book, albeit fairly minor, is not so much directed at the author as it is at the publisher: there is little room in the margins for notes, as well as very sparse flyleaves; hence for those of you who like to engage a book with gushing pen in hand, then you'll find the layout of this book quite restraining, as I did. One might counter this critique, however, with the perhaps granted point that it leaves all the more canvas space on which to overlay layers and layers of brush strokes much needed when attempting to paint the life of this very complex, gifted, and charming man.
A Classic Biography.......2006-10-05
In all things about James Joyce, no one has exhibited more of an acute understanding of the man and his works than Richard Ellmann. He is the bridge by which readers who have not read Joyce or do not understand what they have read by him to the inner workings of the artist and his life.
This biography, "James Joyce" has been around for decades, virtually unchallenged. He presents to the reader all the facets of Joyce's life and personality. This is no mere star-gazing. Along with all the great things about Joyce, he also examines his weakness: his superstitions, his drinking, his occasional selfishnes, his sexual complexities, and his failure to really take care of his family. We get to see Joyce in all his dimensions and from several perspectives. That makes this book not only the best biography of James Joyce but one of the classic biographies of all time.
Best biography in English language in 20th century.......2006-06-20
Richard Ellmann's biography of James Joyce is hands down among the three best or the best biography written in the 20th century. For anyone with a serious interest in Joyce or his writings, will truly enjoy getting to know Joyce and his writings through this book.
I've read maybe a few thousand reviews of other titles on this website but this is the first book I've felt I needed to comment on. I comment mainly because I noted that two reviewers gave this book "4 stars". What unmitigated gall!
When Irish Eyes Exile.......2005-10-11
Richard Ellmann's biography is the most definitive and complete examination of James Joyce that has been written. This extensive work examines Joyce's life from his birth to his death. Ellmann's narrative derives from Joyce's letters as well as accounts from Joyce's brother, Stanislaus. The book is most revealing in offering an understanding of the process it took for Joyce to come up with his most monumental works, ULYSSES AND FINNEGANS WAKE. Ellmann states that Joyce intentionally made it difficult for anyone to understand what he wrote. He wanted to keep his critics, academics and scholars, guessing of what significance his nonsensical gibberish creation represented. In addition, Ellmann intertwines events that occurred in Joyce's life that show how they closely resemble the characters in the works he produced, such as his early work, A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN.
James Joyce most likely can be considered a "starving artist." He would go without a new pair of shoes until they wore down to the soles, but looked debonair and sophisticated with non-matching suits. In the beginning, he aspired to be a work within the realms of Jesuit studies, but later opted for a writing career that would take him from Trieste, Paris, and Zurich. Joyce struggled with poverty through out his life even as his most famous works were published. Monetary problems and health conditions that affected his eyesight never hindered his creative process. If he lost his eyesight, he probably would have continued to write blind. Joyce appeared to be an eccentric and stubborn man. However, Ellmann shows a caring and supporting man who loved his wife and children, and most of all, his father, John Stanislaus Joyce.
In terms to history and literature, Ellmann constantly references Joyce's fascination with Shakespeare, ancient civilization and history. This is best displayed in ULYSSES, but one significant footnote is that he did not appear to care for American history. He makes a minute reference to Ulysses S. Grant in ULYSSES, but he did not even know who the man was; Joyce loathed the United States. Also, Ellmann offers a birds-eye view of what his cohorts thought of his work. Gertrude Stein as well as Ernest Hemingway praised and envied Joyce's contributions to Modernism.
Ellmann examines a tremendous amount of information within his narrative. When one completes JAMES JOYCE, what else do you need to know about this genuine writer who used his craft as a means of getting back home, but never quite made it there? But he preferred Zurich and its snow-capped mountains as home rather than the complexities of his former Dublin. JAMES JOYCE is the springboard one needs when beginning a study of Joyce the man and his works, which should begin with PORTRAIT and ending with WAKE.
Prolegomena to Ulysses.......2005-06-14
I would agree that this is a masterful biography but be warned that it is neither lightweight nor a short read. What I would add is the thought that it it is wonderfully helpful in preparing oneself for a read of the major novel itself. That's something I had begun a dozen times in the last forty years, my furthest-on bookmark being about page 200. With this and the New Bloomsday Book, I finally read Ulysses through. It is an astonishing literary achievement, just as they say, and before your reading is over you've got to do it or it'll be like missing Hamlet. Reading this first is a good head start.
Average customer rating:
- lovely writing
- maybe I missed something?
- What a load of crap
- A classic coming of age story with a twist.
- Great literature - Munro is a master structuralist
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Lives of Girls and Women: A Novel
Alice Munro
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Munro, Alice
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ASIN: 0375707492
Release Date: 2001-02-13 |
Book Description
The only novel from Alice Munro-award-winning author of
The Love of a Good Woman--is an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in form but not in fact," that chronicles a young girl's growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940's.
Del Jordan lives out at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women-her mother, an agnostic, opinionted woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence.
Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women.
Customer Reviews:
lovely writing.......2007-01-05
I hadn't read Munro prior to this "novel" loosely woven from a series of short pieces connected by sequence and character, but found this work delightful. I took the most pleasure in the texture of the prose. Sentences frequently contain, mostly conclude with, these interesting, nearly polar modifiers, so that they say the thing and it's opposite in rapid succession. And both are true in the way that ripened fruit contains within it its future rot. I'm encouraged to discover other Munro.
maybe I missed something?.......2006-06-28
I agree with many of the other reviewers that the characters and the story were generally enjoyable to read. Though it did take me a bit to get invested into the book I found myself deeply involved with them, of course Del primarily, toward the end. The descriptions of Del's adventures and curiosity were tangible and brought back childhood memories and feelings. However, I expected a much different outcome; I expected this curious, intelligent, intellectual Del to develop into a different woman. I can't help but wonder if this book is popular among women who are looking for reassurance in their decision to follow relationships rather than personal ambitions (and maybe that is ok to a certain degree). Hate to sound cynical, but I was outraged at Del's decisions toward the end of the book and in my opinion she made some serious and more importantly, uncharacteristic decisions that really ruined the book for me and made me wonder how this is a major book for women. I couldn't tell if it was condoning her behavior or simply displaying it as the constricted and likely course for women of a time period and even to (I think) a lesser extent today. Still I think that Del's character in the last chapter was entirely too emotional and irrational given her previous actions and thoughts. I myself am in my mid-twenties and I know that life options for women now are not what they were for women in their 50s, 60s, even 40s today, so perhaps it is more relatable for those a little older, and maybe it is important that I've read it to gain a bit more understanding about where we've (women) have come from; but I'd hate for a young girl today to read it and think that she should emulate Del.
What a load of crap.......2004-07-15
Typical anti-male diatribe disguised as a work of literature. This was assigned reading for one of my college literature courses over twenty years ago, and the memory of the distaste I felt while reading it is still fresh in my mind. The symbolism and 'moral of the story' is heavy-handed and overtly obvious. I recommend avoiding it like the plague.
A classic coming of age story with a twist........2002-06-18
Alice Munro is truly the master of the short story. "Lives of Girls and Women" deserves to be on everyone's list of must-read books. Munro is an exceptionally talented writer, one who can take ordinary situations and turn them into something wonderful. Here, she presents a traditional coming of age story, then spices it up with her own unique brand of dry, subtle wit and a host of zany characters. In "Lives," we follow Dell Jordan from childhood to young adulthood as she struggles with her identity in a small town in southern Ontario. Along the way, we meet many colorful characters, including Dell's Baptist boyfriend, her social outcast mother, a suicidal music teacher, and a lecherous friend of the family. "Lives" is more of a collection of short stories than a novel, but each story is like a puzzle piece. In the end, each piece fits together to create a massize jigsaw puzzle of Dell's life. I have read "Lives" three times, and it is one of my favorite books - addictive, humorous, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Great literature - Munro is a master structuralist.......2002-05-21
What an amazing book! This not merely a good book for middle-aged women, or good instruction for girls, or any such claptrap. To label Munro as good "women's lit" is demeaning to women and demeaning to "The Lives of Girls and Women." (Plus it makes men who enjoy reading her a bit funny.) It's a great book! In any category!
Munro is a master of characterization and narrative structure. Del's description of her mother, for example, reveals: (1) Del's feeling of discomfort at her own place within Jubilee's hierarchy and environment; Del wants to fit in, and her mother embodies the eccentric within her own self. (2) Del's mother's strengths, pulling herself from abject poverty, putting herself through school, starting her own business in conservative postwar rural Canada - this woman evokes our admiration, despite the disgust of our narrator. It's these multidimensional portraits that makes Munro so great - yes, a character (Del's mother) can earn our admiration, disgust, and pity all at once...
Then in the building of conflict, Munro ALWAYS surprises us. Every scene is fresh, new, interesting, every culmination of conflict resolves in ways we would never expect. Take the time when Del was being molested by her mother's boarder's boyfriend. One day she goes off with him in his car out to the country, and we're expecting some "Bastard Out of Carolina" child-raping exploitation and subsequent weepy victim hood. But Munro makes a left at the light, has the man simply masturbate in front of the child, who for her part is excited, charmed, and repelled by the sight and is grateful to be introduced to the mystery of the penis.
And lastly, Munro refuses to depict her women in the same, old tired way. Her women are not dragged around by the hand by handsome strangers, as they so often are in movies. Her women are not victims of rape, incest, or peer pressure, as in way too many contemporary novels. No, Munro's women are real. They have drive, ambition, and a deep desire to be seen as people.
Definitely one of my favorite books, ever.
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