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Perpetual Motion: The Public and Private Lives of Rudolf Nureyev
In the first full-scale biography of Rudolf Nureyev since his death from AIDS in 1993, Stuart tells Nureyev's story "with wit and grace" (Chicago Sun-Times). "No dancer in history has been so splendidly characterized in the written word."--Francis Mason, Ballet Review. of photos. Illustrated with photos.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 3, 2017
Biographies of the legendary ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev are plentiful, but this work was the first to come out after his death from AIDS in 1992.
Unfortunately, the book reads like hagiography. Most hagiography is blatantly positive, but Stuart tries hard to present both the positive and negative aspects of Nureyev's personality. Where it becomes hagiography is in the prose style, which is so feathery and amorphous that one gets the feeling of reading a gushing dance review rather than clear-eyed insight into a man's professional and private life.
The book is advertised as "the first look" into Nureyev's private life. But I found that the book is full of so much filler and fluff that it really doens't provide much of a glimpse into the danseur's private life at all! Indeed, instead of primary source documents, interviews with people who knew Nureyev, and even Nureyev's private writing, nearly all of Stuart's information comes from previously published sources. While he's done yeoman's work in gathering this information (some of it in obscure newspapers, magazines, or dance journals), one gets the feeling that there isn't really much new here at all. It may feel new to people who've not read these works, or who knew little of Nureyev. But to a reader in 2017, with access to a much wider array of materials about the man, the book seems less revealing and more hagiographic.
Stuart has a disconcerting way of opening each chapter, describing a scene from Nureyev's life as if it were a movie or screenplay. I don't know what to make of these: Are they factual? Make-believe? Both? How seriously should I take these pages? It's just not clear, and it seems very "Edmund Morris"-y to me.
Stuart's prose is easy to read. When describing ballet, he tends to wallow in not very enlightening adjectival excess. There are lengthy (sometimes repetitive) paragraphs describing Nureyev's dancing as "like a panther", "electric", and "floating". But there's little here which actually tells the uninformed reader what Nureyev was doing. A little about ballet, its terms, its technique, and its precision would have gone a very long way to helping the casual reader get a much better sense of Nureyev's achievements and failures as a dancer.
Finishing this book, I felt like I'd been force-fed a jar of marshmallow fluff and told it was a hamburger.
Unfortunately, the book reads like hagiography. Most hagiography is blatantly positive, but Stuart tries hard to present both the positive and negative aspects of Nureyev's personality. Where it becomes hagiography is in the prose style, which is so feathery and amorphous that one gets the feeling of reading a gushing dance review rather than clear-eyed insight into a man's professional and private life.
The book is advertised as "the first look" into Nureyev's private life. But I found that the book is full of so much filler and fluff that it really doens't provide much of a glimpse into the danseur's private life at all! Indeed, instead of primary source documents, interviews with people who knew Nureyev, and even Nureyev's private writing, nearly all of Stuart's information comes from previously published sources. While he's done yeoman's work in gathering this information (some of it in obscure newspapers, magazines, or dance journals), one gets the feeling that there isn't really much new here at all. It may feel new to people who've not read these works, or who knew little of Nureyev. But to a reader in 2017, with access to a much wider array of materials about the man, the book seems less revealing and more hagiographic.
Stuart has a disconcerting way of opening each chapter, describing a scene from Nureyev's life as if it were a movie or screenplay. I don't know what to make of these: Are they factual? Make-believe? Both? How seriously should I take these pages? It's just not clear, and it seems very "Edmund Morris"-y to me.
Stuart's prose is easy to read. When describing ballet, he tends to wallow in not very enlightening adjectival excess. There are lengthy (sometimes repetitive) paragraphs describing Nureyev's dancing as "like a panther", "electric", and "floating". But there's little here which actually tells the uninformed reader what Nureyev was doing. A little about ballet, its terms, its technique, and its precision would have gone a very long way to helping the casual reader get a much better sense of Nureyev's achievements and failures as a dancer.
Finishing this book, I felt like I'd been force-fed a jar of marshmallow fluff and told it was a hamburger.
August 12, 2019
Interesting. Good pictures. A good depiction of the man himself
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July 18, 2012This is the first book that I read about Rudolf Nureyev. Otis Stuart wrote a brilliant account of an international ballet star, whose lust for perfection was as strong as his desire to sacrifice his life for the sake of art. Rudolf Nureyev's 10-years struggle with an incurable disease was described with such emotional intensity that made me feeling he is the person who can be admired as an example of heroic resistance.
February 16, 2012
might have been a great book but for the salacious over emphasis on the slimy homosexual aspect of his life.
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January 31, 2017I have a deep dislike for the occasionally camp style of the writing in a book otherwise distinguished for a lack of insight and erudition. Opportunistic.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews