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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Thin, Sometimes Interesting Profiles, February 15, 2011
This review is from: Spark: How Creativity Works (Hardcover)
I don't mean to be unkind here because I appreciate the concept and organization of this book. I wanted to like it much more than I did. Still, after shelling out good money for the hardcover, I'm ultimately disappointed by what's here. To me, it feels insubstantial, and I wish I had looked through it carefully in a bookstore before purchasing. Each of the features here (exploring the creative process of several different writers, artists, musicians, etc.) feels quite brief. Some of the profiles are as short as 2-3 pages and come full of journalistic exposition/background. This is fine in theory, but when I buy a book that promises "How Creativity Works" in its subtitle, I'm hoping for deeper, richer quotations from the profiled artists and less background filler. Do I really need to read, for example, that "[Kevin] Bacon, who starred in films like Footloose, JFK, and Apollo 13, is also renowned as the central character in the trivia game 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon...'" (And, no offense, but can Kevin Bacon really help us understand how creativity works? Don't get me wrong--I really like the guy's work, but this just isn't what I hoped for.) Even the longer pieces still feel thin and full of sound bites, rather than concerted reflection on creativity. You may enjoy it if you're looking for brief, breezy slices of NPR-style interview. But if, like me, you were hoping for some sustained dialogue and thinking from these artists, you may want to save your money.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unique Lives Produce Creativity, January 27, 2011
This review is from: Spark: How Creativity Works (Hardcover)
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I am so excited about this book. It is fascinating to read how successful artsy people excelled. One of the artists interviewed said, "If you wait for clouds to part and be struck with a bolt of lightning, you're likely to be waiting the rest of your life. But if you simply get going something will occur to you." I was struck by the fact that overcoming adversity in some way was often the key to creativity. Chuck Close, a very famous portrait painter, had to overcome prosopagnosia- the inability to recognize faces. Imagine! because he could not recognize individual's faces he became a portrait painter. He drew a grid on photographs and took the face square by square and created these wonderful portraits, and in the process was able to recognize faces from his artwork. And when you think proopagnosia is enough of a detriment for this portraitist, he has a spinal aneurysm which leave him paralyzed from the neck down in a matter of hours. The tragically beautiful way that Donald Hall, already a great poet, became greater was through the death of his much younger wife, Jane Kenyon. The grief and mourning that Hall captures in his poetry, Without, is something no human being could fake. When the artist was confined in some way, either by placing his/her own parameters or confined from something beyond his/her control, the art was better. Ben Burtt, the noise behind Star Wars and Wall-E, limits himself in that the noises he 'invents' come from everyday life and are not simply digitally or electronically produced. The hum of the saber came from the hum of an interlock motor on a projector coupled with the sound from a broken microphone passing by a television set, picking up a buzz from the television. On and on, I read of these amazing artists who became amazing because they were willing to go through the trials with which their lives had confronted them, and they produced triumphant, glorious art. Or Ang Lee, a first son of Chinese parents, he was expected to go to college and excel in that way. And yet, he could not push his love of theatre and movies out of his mind. Across the world, James Schamus was growing up watching and loving movies. These two men manage to connect and go on to make incredibly artistic films. These stories come by way of Public Radio International's weekly broadcast, Studio 360, hosted by Kurt Anderson. Never heard of it before, I am glad to be introduced via this book. You will be inspired.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Plain and simple, don't buy this book, March 20, 2011
This review is from: Spark: How Creativity Works (Hardcover)
I don't often comment here on amazon, but this one really prompted me to let everyone know what they are getting themselves into. First of all, the hardcover is around $25 and for that much I have some expectations. Second, the book promises to tell you how creativity works but instead just reads as if it's a transcript from interviews done on a radio show years ago from a lot of people that you've probably never heard of. I don't like sounding harsh, but I was REALLY disappointed with this book. The introduction seems great, I do believe that Julie has a good background to write about the subject of creativity and has some valuable insight; however, she rarely imparts her own wisdom. Instead it seems like just a ploy to use her past interviews to make some money through book sales. It's not worth your time, you won't gain much at all.
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