I wish I had more time to devote to this than I do. The bit of a window I had was taken up by reading the book, a fascinating read for which I am quite grateful. From this side of the read I am afraid the book described in the review has little relation to what I found in Jamison's work. I am sure there are reams of worse reviews out there but I can honestly say, of book reviews that I have had a deep interest in, it is the farthest off the mark I can remember.
(BTW, I got a hold of it on kindle for like ten bucks but if readers want a bit of a taste there are several chapters available online at amazon for free. The available chapter on Character was enough to induce me to order the whole. Easy enough to check it out for yourselves. I would love to write a review myself and if I can weasel it into my classes ( which just started and buried me with 1000 pages of reading I will be sure to post it here. )
The ridiculous claims regarding "the disgraceful person" of the whole human at issue here (his lack of lucidity, remorse, and courage) are not a point of disagreement between you and Kay Jamison but rather one strained two page reviews revision of Lowell against the deeply founded love and common histories of his wives, his daughter, his students and his friends. Many of these same are brilliant writers and close observers themselves, whose quotes and experiences of Lowell fill out much of the book (IMO to its credit) without fudging the dark and painful sides of these experiences despite the surprising assertions of sanitization (a telling choice of words) you put forward. Being honest about the role that mental wounds play in the human animal, facing the disturbing fact that very self we love can in fact go under the rising waters and be lost for a time is not about blanket excuses. The shame and remorse such moments carry in the souls of many of the folks that deal with this harsh business wouldn't be easily mitigated by such claims in any case. Your claim to find no evidence of character in the person reflecting through Jamison's selections and in the deeply felt memories of those who loved the fellow are really strange to me. I began highlighting early with an eye to such but quickly realized how silly the pile up was getting. Your assertions are fair enough, I suppose, being that the currency in question depends on what you are willing to acept in exchange. The complexities of love and life outside the neat shops away from the well-mannered lawns of the supposed normals open us up to all sorts of barter. It can get dicey as hell but in the end the salvaged bits of real treasure make the serial-numbered, uniformly-cut and colored stacks of conventional character look a bit like bland paper. I reading off my own walls here. And paraphrasing Hardwick. I speaking of dicey, I am giving a hundred to one odds on the bet that she would kick your review in the shins. The passion here is that I recognize in Jamison's Lowell a ring of truth because of my own experiences with the courage you seem blind to. No one is intent on misreading your views. You wrote words that have a certain tone and meaning to me. I took your words seriously and responded with feeling. Glass houses and rocks as they say.
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