Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell

Rating:
Summary: Life in a Shadow Box
Review: An unforgettable book about an unforgettable man. John Malkovich (who even looks like Cornell)must play Cornell in the movie version! This book is quirky, bittersweet and totally engrossing. The artists, cult figures, dancers, lovely ladies, that twirl around inside Cornell's life and art make this a must read for those interested in the complex world of artists and those people who inspire them. Hollywood, make this into a movie!! Totally unique.

Rating:
Summary: Immensely grateful but waiting for the next
Review: As an antidote to my seams-bursting curiosity about Cornell, this book deserves a rating off the measly 5 star scale and into the realm of splendiferous constellations. To you Deborah Solomon I am sincerely grateful. But upon rereading Utopia Parkway seems rather thin, and at times, unfortunately, nearly patronizing. I don't doubt her respect for Cornell, but occasionally she treats him as too much of a curiosity, as if he was an eccentric she's putting into a box. Perhaps she simply had trouble understanding him. And of course she committed the unpardonable sin, and anti-Cornellian faux pas, within her pages of referring to pigeons as ugly grey scavengers. They are, as every reader of this book should know, winged urban enchanters.

Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful biography.
Review: I knew very little about Cornell before beginning this book, although I have always admired his art...this book was informative and very enjoyable. The author attempted to fill in the gaps where there were few definitive answers about his life, but always remained true to the spirit of Cornell. Definitely recommended.

Rating:
Summary: ILLUMINATING A HIDDEN LIFE
Review: In Utopia Parkway, Ms. Solomon has achieved the seemingly impossible: explaining the art of an artist whose work is always associated with the mysterious and inexplicable and making fascinating a seemingly dull life story. Cornell never left the metropolitan NY area and lived the last 43 years of his life in a small house in Queens. Yet in the basement of that house on Utopia Parkway, he created some of the most exciting and enticing art of the 20th century. It is the inward life that Cornell lived and the glorious artistic expression of that life that Solomon so beatufilly illuminates in this fascinating biography. It is a masterful achievement and anyone interested in the art of biography -- or the art of this century -- will find this a must read.

Rating:
Summary: why the psychobable?
Review: like all the other reviewers i have an immense interest in cornell. however i found deborah solomon's constant psychological asides both banal and ultimately dulling. every page has some fatuous and often risible so-called apercu. i wanted a biography, not some fanciful and very dated exercise in psychoanalysis. shame cos there is a lot of enjoyable fact offered. cornell's own selected diary and letters published under the title The Theatre of the Mind, is the only authority on his thinking as far as i am concerned. this biographical arrogance of reducing an artist's life to a sequence of supposedly transparent motivations is so passe surely.

Rating:
Summary: It's art, not therapy!
Review: Solomon is a very good writer and her ability to capture images and moods is continually shattered by her excessive (and striclty amateur attempts at) psychoanalysis. For me personally, it was a constant irritant that ruined what would otherwise be a wonderful and fascinating biography.

Rating:
Summary: It's art, not therapy!
Review: Solomon is a very good writer and her ability to capture images and moods is continually shattered by her excessive (and striclty amateur attempts at) psychoanalysis. For me personally, it was a constant irritant that ruined what would otherwise be a wonderful and fascinating biography.

Rating:
Summary: Cornell
Review: This is definitely one of my favorite books of all time. There are plenty of reviews already that pick apart details and issues, so I'll keep this short. The book states that Cornell was a man of many obsessions and who got a certain delight out of a certain celebrity voyeurism, this book is perfect for people who hold that sort of voyeuristic thirst for Cornell himself or can relate and understand to the hermetic lifestyle he chose for himself.

Rating:
Summary: Cornell
Review: This is definitely one of my favorite books of all time. There are plenty of reviews already that pick apart details and issues, so I'll keep this short. The book states that Cornell was a man of many obsessions and who got a certain delight out of a certain celebrity voyeurism, this book is perfect for people who hold that sort of voyeuristic thirst for Cornell himself or can relate and understand to the hermetic lifestyle he chose for himself.