Customer Reviews

Streisand: A Biography

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

 

 

First off, I love Barbra Streisand. She is an electrifying, complex, multi-talented woman with incredible drive and tremendous style. And, like many women, she is abrasive, needy, egomaniacal, picky, and prone to anxieties and self doubt. That's pretty much why I admire her--she's so much like me, except, of course, she can sing, act, make movies, write songs, and so on!

As much as I enjoyed reading this book, the first Streisand bio I've read, I found the writing itself rather lacking. Over and over the author explains and re-explains Streisand's need for motherly approval, her urge to become famous to prove wrong anyone who ever said she wasn't attractive enough for stardom. The author's passive writing style sometimes literally put me to sleep: "The star-lit night was warm." Oh, please!

So, while I did like finding out details about one of my favorite performers, I felt the text could have used a good editor's touch.

After reading, Edwards book on the famous singer, I found that Edwards has definately done her homework. There were many interesting and fun facts and factlets about Barbra's life and, especially, the people in them. However, the last few chapters fall apart and I couldn't help but wonder what the big rush seemed to be in not paying as close attention to detail as Edwards had early on in Barbra's life. Clearly, she holds Streisand in high regard, since Edwards presents her life as if she is one of her biggest fans. The book opens with the Las Vegas concerts and ends about 5 years after, giving the reader no sense of closure. A flaw in writing the biography of a person who's story isn't over yet.

I really enjoyed reading this book about Barbra. I was getting to the end of the book, and I was thinking, "this book has been fab!" But the end of the book was all about how difficult Barbra was to work with in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Not a nice way to end a book. The majority of people who are going to read this book are Streisand fans, and we don't want an ending like this, do we?

Barbra Streisand is my rolemodel,icon,idol,inspiration,and hope. She has made it possible for me to believe in my dreams.And this wonderful book documents a phenomenons life. One day if my goal is accomplished I will be able to have said I've been graced with her presence!An absolute pleasure to read!

I read Edwards' rendition of Streisand on a full stomach--indeed, had I eaten one more bite, I would have choked in a way that would have repulsed the most sea-tested sailor. Perhaps it was this context--a context at once full and barren--that allowed me to plunge into Streisand's persona with such plodding, cautious, phobic zeal. Would this book answer the main question: is Babs a hapless victim; is she an innocent child; or is she an immature hapless brat whose very own defensiveness results entirely in her tireless attempts to put others on the defensive in her presence? Once you are certain the world revolves around you, to put others on the defensive is your only resort when an unnamed discomfort disturbs your fragile psyche--when for a passing moment the reality that you are not as great as you think you are dares manifest itself; and you, with just slightly greater impetus, dare not see it for what it is really is: a truth that threatens the (necessary) house of cards that you --and your adoring lemmings--call reality. Edwards' treatment here sidesteps these questions by becoming a literary lemming. Her introduction and her conclusion are like two pies on a ledge of a house: screaming the warning "don't jump around or the pies may tip over and fall!" Edwards is a fan. That is why this book is so excellent. She loves Babs. I do. You do. Babs does. Andre does. Our president does. Buy the book and share it with your OWN Babs. Cross the line. To make a connection. A Streisand Connection.

In order to be fair I read this book twice. I adore Babs--I live my life to be like hers; I want my resonance to sympathize with her resonance. I want people to spend time with me and to think that they have really been in the company of Babs. Or at least AS IF they had been in her company--I want to leave a similar impression. I really really really do. I approached this book in much the same way. I wanted to think that this book was in Babs' library. Instead, if anything, Edwards' treatment locates this book not in her library but perhaps in her pantry--right between that canned vegatable that the previous owners left behind and the cantalope pie tin. Edwards' doesn't get Babs' main rhetorical mechanism--of putting the world on the defensive to protect her from her own defensiveness. Edward's BUYS INTO Babs' mechanisms rather than calling them out. In a sense, Edwards argues for the grandeur of the Emperor's new clothes. I give it 5 stars because, as the other reviews attest, her fans want to be duped. Hence, I celebrate 5-star stupidity.

Barabra Streisand. She is one of the most fantastic ladies ever to walk this earth. This Biography is Fantastic. I love it.