Some Remarkable Men: Further Memoirs [Hardcover]

James Lord (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1996

With his critically acclaimed acute eye, James Lord has created another series of inimitably spirited, witty, profoundly moving portraits. Haunting, mesmerizing, and endlessly entertaining, Some Remarkable Men reverberates with Lord's unique gift for the intimate portrait.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Lord, an American who has lived in Paris for more than half a century, has been friends with some of the most influential and interesting artists and thinkers of our time. In a previous volume, Six Exceptional Women, he looked back on his friendships with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and four others. Some Remarkable Men provides a glimpse into the lives of Alberto Giacometti, Harold Acton, Jean Cocteau, and Balthus. Lord sits squarely in what is now a very unfashionable branch of the school of biography--he believes strongly in the idea of genius and eschews the notion that the history of an individual is somehow reducible to a set of pathologies that grow out of some character flaw or childhood trauma. The result is a series of portraits that are engaging, insightful, funny, and revealing.

From Publishers Weekly

Lord (Picasso and Dora) lifts the biographical portrait to the level of daring, soul-searching, adventurous art form in these four resonant, beautifully written essays. He begins with Harold Acton, English aesthete, novelist, memoirist, lover of Evelyn Waugh. In Lord's estimate, Acton lived off his own legend, his pursuit of beauty a refuge from life, his later years consumed in caring for his parents' museum-like villa outside Florence. The essay on Jean Cocteau finds Lord in the cross fire of a feud between the opium-taking dramatist/filmmaker/literary lion and Cocteau's close friend Pablo Picasso, whose long, steady decline as an artist Lord delineates. Next we enter the private universe of the painter Balthus, whose haunting canvases, full of aristocratic reverie, malaise and longing, are linked here to the Paris-born artist's snobbish identification with his father, a Polish nobleman, and the shame he felt about his Jewish mother. Alberto Giacometti, whom Lord befriended in 1952, insisted on living like a pauper even after he became rich, and was frequently callous toward his wife during their open marriage. Lord deftly probes how, out of this chaos, emerged works of profound human empathy. Sucked into the bitter family squabble that erupted over the disposition of Giacometti's estate, Lord was sued in 1986 by the sculptor's widow, who accused him of stealing and forging sculptures; she lost on all counts. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (September 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374266557
• ISBN-13: 978-0374266554
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.