Nat King Cole by Daniel Mark Epstein Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Nat King Cole
Book Review: Means Unworthy of the Ends
Summary: 1 Stars
What crime do you commit when you assign a feeble-minded writer to compose a biography about a great artist? Employment of means unworthy of the ends. NAT KING COLE is a lousy biography primarily because its author, Epstein, doesn't know how to separate the essential from the nonessential in his subject's life. In addition, Epstein's ability to interpret his information is astonishingly inadequate. His style is pedestrian as well as inconsistent (he employs both a third-person narrative as well as inappropriate first-person asides.) His extrapolative generalizations are absolutely asinine. The examples are legion; here's one of them: "Like all things human, [the Golden Age of Jazz] could not last." (According to this "logic," nothing human endures, including Nat King Cole's recordings.) Epstein annoyingly and patronizingly refers to Nat as Nathaniel throughout most of the book. Infrequently, the biography sputters to life when Epstein allows Cole to speak for himself, but the comments included are rarely revealing. Worst of all, Epstein's biography sheds little, if any light on Cole's personal artistic development over time--and that is a major omission. The music receives short shrift in an otherwise tabloid account. A laborious, ungratifying read. NOT recommended.Book Review: i love it
Summary: 4 Stars
i absolutely loved it, i'd buy 10 copies if it wasn't weird!