Customer Reviews

Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I loved it. It has a way of getting to the underlying reasons we Americans are so fascinated with the late Mrs. Onassis. Perhaps, a bit much for some and Auntie Mame-ish, but fun. A totally different take then the usual bio and could be read aloud at some spoken word event, it has that kind of melodic tempo. She was a work of art, so perhaps it takes great art to get to the heart of her allure. I loved the chapter on her "pillbox hat". Check it out. Definitely worth a read.

A previous customer described Jackie under My Skin as perfect bathroom reading. At first that was more or less how I, too, attempted to attack this book, but even short passages began to test my nerves, and I soon found myself skipping ahead, looking for the meat of the book. Of course, there is no meat, there are just pages and pages of what happens when an academic tries to write about kitsch----meat-flavored cotton candy. Well, not quite, but something just as empty, incongruous and unpleasant. The author fails to connect what eventually comes across as self-obsession and vanity with the book's supposed subject, and as a result it is not successful as academic writing, as sociological or media study, as biography, or, most importantly, as entertainment.

I simply couldn't put this book down. Kostenbaum's charming analysis of Jackie O's celebrity is dazzling, eccentric and riveting. This book is by no means a biography; rather, the author introduces us to the Jackie of his imagination. Kostenbaum's highly personal essays tranform Jackie-watching from a mere sport into a delightful intellectual and spiritual excercise. It is truly a pleasure to read a book by an author who treats his subject with such playfulness and affection. However, certain Jackie fans might consider such treatment sacreligious and are not likely to enjoy this book.

Koestenbaum's book is combustible, flamboyant, a marvel. He is a poet-essayist who has taken as his subject here something about which he truly feels passion, and the object of this affection just happens to be a well-known cultural icon, someone from America of the 1960s but not of it, a hieroglyphic who after her reign as First Lady ended reinvented herself completely several times over before Madonna ever thought of it, all without ever discussing herself or even acknowledging the power of her own celebrity. Other than Salinger, she may be one of the last U.S. icons, since an icon, by nature, does not speak about itself. Koestenbaum's love for Jackie O is unbounded; one can only imagine that she, editor and wordsmith that she finally became, would have appreciated Koestenbaum's wild exploration of her images. This book is funny and provocative, whether or not you know anything about Jackie! But as the other reviews here would suggest, Jackie lovers should stand forewarned -- they probably won't like this book.

What a waste of paper! It would be hard to imagine a more self-indulgent exercise than using literary critical skills to analyze your own gushy fantasies about a celebrity--at times it veers from mere triviality into being deeply offensive in its presumptions about how one can "dissect" someone's private pain. What's been most appalling has been to see how the example of this work has given license to other young scholars to write their own equally flimsy and self-congratulatory works on their own private dream worlds (such as Kevin Koppelson in his recent book on Nijinsky).

A little of this self-serving ode goes a very long way. I cannot imagine anyone reading it straight through; but rather, it is excellent bathroom reading, to be opened and shut quickly. One gets the feeling that the author wishes he were Jackie O. himself, and that by writing this he has somehow possessed her or claimed her. It is, quite simply, a sick symptom of the celebrity obsession of our culture, being passed off as East Coast intellectualism. There is nothing intellectual about it. The fact that it is written by a male makes it even creepier. I had to dispoae of my copy, which I found at a yard sale.

Amusing, if exhausting, fact-fantasia by an author who adores his subject.

Funny categories on our beloved Jackie. A book that one cannot possibly put down and definitly cannot forget. A Real treasure!!!!!! FOR QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSIONS ON JACKIE ONASSIS, PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT MellissaLD@aol.com. HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While not the singular masterpiece that his "The Queen's Throat" remains, "Jackie Under My Skin" is an engaging, visceral, punchy romp through a classic American icon and an endearing ideal, while being at the same time a great deal more. Koestenbaum's theme remains the search surrounding our dilemma, he's a master of disguise that ends revealing everything . This book immediately goes under YOUR skin when you read it-- Koestenbaum's famous 5000 eyes see everything and keep everything balanced and bright. His literary sense is overpowering. The words leap and bite and nearly drown you sometimes. Koestenbaum's version of reality is clean and robust; this is a writer in jaw-dropping command of his thought. The prose is often downright shocking. Koestenbaum's preference to explore the threads of existence and suffering in a uniquely devoted way marks him out among modern writers, and he's an academic, as well; riding a single vein, a single notion, into the most perfect art, he is all about genius and the so-called redemptive aspects of literature, without ever leaving the most modern, most natural sensibility. His work is marvelous to READ. I would commend to you everything this fellow has written, especially "The Queen's Throat", but this book on Jackie is awfully fine.

This mush from a professor at Yale? EEEgaddds!!! I have read more insightful writings from my fourth grade granddaughter. I sludged through to page 17 and decided that one barf per chapter is more punishment that I can bear.