Review, buy Novelists, Poets & Playwrights: Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed, Bruce Chatwin, Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure, Raymond Williams: a Warrior's Tale, Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll, Chekhov: Scenes from a Life, Going Solo, Peace Work: Peace Work v. 7, Explore Black History with "Wee Pals", The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, This Boy's Life (Bloomsbury paperbacks), Black Boy: A Record of Youth and Childhood (Vintage classics), The Fire Next Time: My Dungeon Shook; Down at the Cross (Twentieth Century Classics), Showered in Shale: One Man's Circuitous Journey Throughout the Country in Pursuit of an Obsession: British Speedway, Introduction to Spanish Poetry: A Dual-language Book (Dual-Language Books), Talking Myself Home: My Life in Verses, Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen (Jewish Life, History, and Culture), The Girl from Leam Lane: The Life and Writing of Catherine Cookson, My Lives, Jane Austen for Dummies (For Dummies)

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Review W. W. Norton & Co. / Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed

Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed (W. W. Norton & Co.)

Authors

S Hall

Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-08-08
Dewey code: 797.14092
RRP: ~~£10.55~~
Price: £10.49

Review Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed / W. W. Norton & Co.:

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Bruce Chatwin (Vintage)

Authors

Nicholas Shakespeare

Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2000-04-06
RRP: ~~£11.99~~
Price: £6.59

Review Bruce Chatwin / Vintage:

Bruce Chatwin was the golden child of the contemporary English novel; by the time he died of an AIDS-related illness aged 49 in January 1989 he had produced the startlingly original masterpieces that made his name. Chatwin came late to being a published writer; In Patagonia, his instant classic of what can loosely be termed "travel literature", came out in 1977. In the preceding years this precocious, intense figure had been an art specialist at Sotheby's, a journalist with The Sunday Times, an archaeologist and a restless, questing traveller. By the time his novel of studying the Aboriginal dreamtime in Australia, The Songlines, was published, he had gained a worldwide audience. An obsessive art collector, Chatwin also acquired people as he did fabulous objects. He took both male and female lovers while continuing to remain married to his wife Elizabeth, seemingly the most enduring relationship of his life. It is her cooperation and tenacity which enabled this biography to come about, as well as Nicholas Shakespeare's exhaustive research (the book was eight years in the making). It is the international span of Chatwin's experiences that makes the reader appreciate his desire to know all cultures and disciplines. There is some excellent, evocative writing here, particularly in Shakespeare's account of Chatwin's last weeks, his disappointment at not winning the Booker Prize for Utz and the detailed passage describing Chatwin's awful, miserable death surrounded by friends and family. There are a plethora of adjectives used to describe Chatwin such as "elusive", "mercurial", and "charismatic". [+]

Yet what Nicholas Shakespeare brings across in this immense, excellent life of Chatwin is the complete aloneness of the man. He was a flamboyant fabulist, an unparalleled conversationalist, yet, as the Australian poet Les Murray is quoted as saying: "He was lonely and he wanted to be. He had those blue, implacable eyes that said: 'I will reject you, I will forget you, because neither you nor any other human being can give me what I want. '"-Catherine Taylor.

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Review Faber and Faber / Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure

Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure (Faber and Faber)

Authors

Paul Auster

Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1998-11-16
Dewey code: 920
RRP: ~~£12.99~~
Price: £5.87

Review Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure / Faber and Faber:

In this aptly titled memoir Paul Auster takes a hacksaw to the romanticised notion of the Starving Artist. Deciding he needs experience more than schooling ("I didn't want to talk about books anymore, I wanted to write them"), the would-be writer heads off to seek his fortune. as an airconditioner installer, a utilityman on the Esso Florence, and a writer of educational filmstrip copy (to name only a few). In doing so, he strips bare the glamour of the writing life to reveal the grainy, sad truth of an unknown scribe trying to make ends meet. And as further evidence against the Hollywood version he includes early writings and money-making attempts in a fascinating set of appendices. But rather than let this marginal existence get him down, Auster fuels his writing with the folks he meets along the way. For instance, Casey and Teddy, a hilarious vaudevillian duo whom he encounters while groundskeeper at the Commodore Hotel, bear a striking resemblance to the two main characters in Auster's early play, Laurel and Hardy Go to Heaven (included in Appendix 1). And no memoir would be complete without a few brushes with the rich and famous; enter Jerzy Kosinski (Auster edited Cockpit), as well as brief encounters with John Lennon and the home of Mark Rothko. [+]

Of all the schemes Auster cooks up to stay afloat, none is more doomed (nor more endearing) than Action Baseball (Appendix 2), a card game he invents and endeavours to sell to various toy companies. Of course, his final scheme-to write and publish a detective novel (Appendix 3)-is the reason you're reading this now. -Martha Silano.

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