Clark gable biography book
Clark Gable: A Biography
March 25, 2011
I read Mr. Harris' book on Marilyn Miller, "The Other Marilyn," and found it interesting and enjoyable. I was thus encouraged when I found that he had written a book on Clark Gable, and hoped that it would provide a similar level of scholarship.
In some ways, this biography does indeed cover Mr. Gable's life in an even-handed and informative way. We learn about his rough and tumble early years (which makes his later miserliness easy to understand), and his early marriages, which seem to have been calculated to further his career rather than to warm his heart. There isn't a huge amount of time spent on his marriage to Carole Lombard, but interested readers would want to read about that in Mr. Harris' book devoted entirely to their all-too-brief time together anyway.
What detracts from "Clark Gable: A Biography" has more to do with writerly style and point of view than anything else. There are strained witticisms that are unnecessary and worse, unamusing, and statements of irrelevant fact which have no bearing on the story at hand and have no support in any case. At one point an actress is described as a "known lesbian," which was meant to explain why Gable never chased after her. Firstly, I don't "know" any such thing and neither does Mr. Harris, and secondly, who cares?
Then there are the exclamation points. One is too many in a non-fiction work, and this book is peppered with them (usually in conjunction with one of the aforementioned witticisms). This is Mr. Harris' preferred writing style for this book; fair enough. It is a matter of personal preference that exclamation points belong in a teenage girl's diary, not in a non-fiction work. They inject the author into the telling of a factual story, and the author should only be a conduit, not a character.
I was heartened to find that Kay Spreckels made Clark Gable's final years happy ones, after so much sadness permeated his life. I was not terribly surprised by some of his negative behavior, especially with regard to his ignoring his daughter with Loretta Young and his constant skirt-chasing. However, I was encouraged and pleased by his thoughtfulness at other times. One actress complained to him that her feet hurt when she had to portray a ballerina in a film; the next time they saw one another, he provided her with some salve he'd purchased in France, telling her "they say it's the best thing for sore feet." That's a sweet guy. He wasn't sweet all the time, but he was just sweet enough, just often enough, for me to keep liking him.
In some ways, this biography does indeed cover Mr. Gable's life in an even-handed and informative way. We learn about his rough and tumble early years (which makes his later miserliness easy to understand), and his early marriages, which seem to have been calculated to further his career rather than to warm his heart. There isn't a huge amount of time spent on his marriage to Carole Lombard, but interested readers would want to read about that in Mr. Harris' book devoted entirely to their all-too-brief time together anyway.
What detracts from "Clark Gable: A Biography" has more to do with writerly style and point of view than anything else. There are strained witticisms that are unnecessary and worse, unamusing, and statements of irrelevant fact which have no bearing on the story at hand and have no support in any case. At one point an actress is described as a "known lesbian," which was meant to explain why Gable never chased after her. Firstly, I don't "know" any such thing and neither does Mr. Harris, and secondly, who cares?
Then there are the exclamation points. One is too many in a non-fiction work, and this book is peppered with them (usually in conjunction with one of the aforementioned witticisms). This is Mr. Harris' preferred writing style for this book; fair enough. It is a matter of personal preference that exclamation points belong in a teenage girl's diary, not in a non-fiction work. They inject the author into the telling of a factual story, and the author should only be a conduit, not a character.
I was heartened to find that Kay Spreckels made Clark Gable's final years happy ones, after so much sadness permeated his life. I was not terribly surprised by some of his negative behavior, especially with regard to his ignoring his daughter with Loretta Young and his constant skirt-chasing. However, I was encouraged and pleased by his thoughtfulness at other times. One actress complained to him that her feet hurt when she had to portray a ballerina in a film; the next time they saw one another, he provided her with some salve he'd purchased in France, telling her "they say it's the best thing for sore feet." That's a sweet guy. He wasn't sweet all the time, but he was just sweet enough, just often enough, for me to keep liking him.
Best stalin biography book Sarah Davies' "Stalin's World," is a fascinating book that attempts to understand the cutthroat world of Soviet politics through the eyes of Stalin. Stalin hardly left his office, and perceived his broader context through reading letters, reports, books, and articles, etc.