Customer Reviews

Stephen Sondheim: A Life

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Secrest has written a book on Sondheim that skims the surface and gives a broad overview. It rarely has insights, however, except a few "anaylses" of the musicals themselves that often border on the ludicrous (such as how many references to S&M there are in his works). There are misspellings of people's names, wrong dates, and some confused plot descriptions as well. But most of all, she seems too polite and distanced from her subject, offering facts but not insight or exploration. I'm not asking for National Enquirer-style dirt, but there is more on the inner-workings and intrigue of such works as "Merrily" in Craig Zadan's "Sondheim & Company," which unfortuantely is out of print, I believe. Furthermore, Secrest is often a confusing writer. She switches pronouns without always making it clear who is now doing the talking, or includes an out-of-context quote without explaining its meaning or context. She also repeats herself in several spots, making me think she revised one segment while forgetting what she had written just a page later or earlier. In short, this book needed an editor, as well as a more probing and insightful author. Most biographies suffer from excessive speculation. This one has just the opposite flaw.

I bought this book after it had been hyped up in "The Sondheim Review", a magazine for Sondheim junkies like myself. I read it in hopes of going behind the genius of such musicals as "Follies", "Company" and "West Side Story", but instead got a dark and detailed (too detailed for my taste) account of the more dreary parts of his life. There is some musical theater critique, but her lack of knowledge in this area is unbelievable. Her constant "Here, let me tell you what I think was going on at this point" grows tiresome as well. Still, there's no denying his life has been fascinating, and this book serves as a good rainy day reader.

I am a passionate admirer of Stephen Sondheim's output, and joyfully anticipated reading this book. It is pedestrian and uninspiring - - surely Mr. Sondheim could have entrusted this work to a writer with more flair, skill and specialist knowledge of the creative and professional worlds he inhabits. The most striking aspect of Ms. Secrest's book, in my view, is the snobbish and insupportable bit of American bashing she indulges in. She introduces the notion that Sondheim has found a more receptive audience for his work in England than he has in the US, and posits that this is attributable to the superior "training" of the English theatre-going public (e.g., rigorously schooled in Shakespeare, a native love of language, etc.). I am an American and an avid theatre-goer who has been resident in London for seven years, and cannot identify any justification for Ms. Secrest's absurd obervations! They signify what these kinds of remarks always do - the desperate and embittered attempts of a surpassed culture to cling to the romance of its imagined regality.

The prospective purchaser of "Stephen Sondheim: A Life" is likely to be misled by this remark: "people seem to be missing the point--this isn't a critical biography, but a personal one". In fact, until she undertook to write it, the author of this book had no personal or professional relationship with its subject whatsoever. It is a thing anyone sufficiently motivated could throw together, and I can't in good conscience recommend it. I can and do recommend Craig Zadan's "Sondheim & Company", and for those interested in musical theatre in general, Richard Rodgers's "Musical Stages" and Alan Jay Lerner's "The Street Where I Live".

If you want to learn about Sondheim's life in detail, this is the most thorough account. Although there are books that are mostly about his work in which you can also find biographical information, this is the first and (thus far) only biography. That's the only reason why I'm giving three stars to this generally shoddy book.

What's wrong? First, there is an astounding number of factual errors.

In addition to the outright errors, Secrest also makes many misleading, imprecise, or incomplete statements. Loose ends and chronological confusions abound.

Some of the people Secrest quotes also make statements that are factually incorrect, and neither she nor her editors (who must take a good share of the blame) caught these mistakes. All of this suggests that she knows little about musical theatre in general or Sondheim's work in particular. She actually gets major plot details of Sondheim's shows wrong. Unbelievable.

There are also numerous places where she makes statements that contradict what she writes elsewhere.

All these problems seriously call into question how much of the material here that isn't public knowledge can be trusted. You end up wondering how someone who is so clearly unqualified persuaded the people at Knopf to give her this assignment, much less how she got Sondheim to cooperate. She must talk well, but she certainly doesn't write well.

Which brings us to the final problem: She isn't a very good writer.

Still, if you want a Sondheim bio, this is it. Since Secrest had access to Sondheim and to many of his friends and associates, I'm sure that some of what she writes is accurate. But if you read this, you should just realize that a good deal of what is here is unquestionably wrong.

Meryle Secrest's book is one of a kind (so far): a story of Stephen Sondheim, the man, rather than simply Stephen Sondheim, the artist. No other book has attempted to do this, and Secrest does a fine job. This book is an absolute feast for Sondheim fans, because the Great Man himself reveals several illuminating insights into his own life, conflicted personality and peerless work. I read the other reviews here at Amazon, and people seem to be missing the point--this isn't a critical biography, but a personal one. And it is one of the very best books written about this enigmatic, thoroughly fascinating man.

Secrest's bio is still unfortunately indispensible for any student of the man behind the musicals, but its plodding style, many irrelevant asides, and total lack of imagination, wit, or geniune personal insight makes it a difficult read. Recommended only for the serious student of Sondheim.

I, like many other people, approached this biography with high hopes. Unfortunately, I found an often poorly and pretentiously written book. Some of it is so incoherent that it was hard to believe it had been edited and copy-edited. There were also a number of factual errors in the book, many of them minor, some not so minor, but surprising in a book like this (especially one that Sondheim was apparently allowed to see and comment on before publication).

However, what is the Sondheim addict to do? Craig Zadan's "Sondheim and Co." and Stephen Banfield's "Sondheim's Broadway Musicals" both have much of value (Martin Gottfried's "Sondheim" is awful), even if Banfield's often brilliant and certainly ground-breaking book has a few factual errors of its own. But they are not biographies. If you love Sondheim, this is a book you're going to want to read; there is unquestionably much that is of interest here. Hopefully, no one will read it under the illusion that it is definitive. In the meantime, I look forward to the next Sondheim biography in the hope that when it comes, it is better than this one.

This was worth reading for the insights Sondheim provided into his work and for the numerous interviews conducted in its writing, but I wish someone would tell Ms. Secrest that the numerous analogies she draws between Mr. Sondheim's life and classical literature are both pretentious and overdone. What's the point you're trying to make Meryle? I'm sure it's not how well read you happen to be. And one other thing: being a homosexual does NOT mean that everything you produce artistically is colored by your sexuality. Couldn't she think of any thing else to say that was relevant? I guess not, but this book is worth reading for die-hard Sondheim fans.

It's very sad to see Craig Zadan's "Sondheim & Company" out of print and in its stead this plodding pastiche. Ms. Secrest has no training in, experience with, or especial knowledge of theatre or music, yet she feels obliged to bore us with her theatrical obiter dicta, to critique each of Sondheim's works. Ms. Secrest has no training in, experience with, or especial knowledge of pschology, yet she feels obliged to psychoanalyze her subject. The result is not enlightening.

recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.