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Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski
This autobiography recounts the life of the German actor Klaus Kinski. It tells of his tortured childhood in the poverty of pre-war Berlin - starving, stealing, perpetually frost-bitten - his conscription, at the age of 16, into the German army, the last of World War II, and on through his rise to international stardom as a film actor. His Casanovian pursuit of sex (often with under-age girls) is chronicled in graphic detail. He is best known for his performances in the Werner Herzog films, such as "Fitzcarraldo" and "Aguirre Wrath of God".
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
March 19, 2008
I mean, he tried to eat a live cow.
March 28, 2020
I can only imagine Kinski's inner dialogue as he sat down to begin writing his autobiography, "I vant to have my readers hold my book in vone hand und zer privates in ze other hand." With all the sexcapades in all their pornographic details it is easy to forget that the author of this book was also an actor.
I felt like I did after reading "Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis. I have never read anything quite like it, I enjoyed the style, thankfully it was short, as I couldn't go on too much longer with it.
The best part is the first third in which our hero talks about his childhood on the mean streets of somewhere in Poland. He gets drafted into the army - never mentioning the words: Hitler, Nazi or even Totenkopff that I can remember- tries to eat a live cow, has sex with his sister - also without mentioning the words Hitler, Nazi or... well I could go on all day - and he wanders about post war Germany sleeping in forests and bus stations while honing his skills as an orator and actor.
The second part of the book is when he gets rich and comfortable and prances around the world as the rockstar he was, sexing and eating and marrying and divorcing and sexing and quasi-raping and sometimes acting. He goes to the jungle, he buys a few cars, he lives the good life and tries very hard to convince the reader he never wanted it in the first place.
The third act is one long love letter to his son. Sound touching? Well, I don't think it was in the same sense as he was accused of "touching" his daughters but in descriptive tone it is not far off. He very clearly loved his boy something fierce just not illegally.
Reading this book in the wake of #metoo gives one a lot of pause. This book is famed for being highly fictionalized but even if a fraction of it were true this guy and Weinstein could compare notes. It's seductive in how affronting and provocative it can be. He truly was a master of invectives but it certainly lacks in anything substantive. Read it if you're the old fashioned sort and prefer your porn in literary form. Don't read it if you like amusing anecdotes about life on the sets of famous films.
I felt like I did after reading "Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis. I have never read anything quite like it, I enjoyed the style, thankfully it was short, as I couldn't go on too much longer with it.
The best part is the first third in which our hero talks about his childhood on the mean streets of somewhere in Poland. He gets drafted into the army - never mentioning the words: Hitler, Nazi or even Totenkopff that I can remember- tries to eat a live cow, has sex with his sister - also without mentioning the words Hitler, Nazi or... well I could go on all day - and he wanders about post war Germany sleeping in forests and bus stations while honing his skills as an orator and actor.
The second part of the book is when he gets rich and comfortable and prances around the world as the rockstar he was, sexing and eating and marrying and divorcing and sexing and quasi-raping and sometimes acting. He goes to the jungle, he buys a few cars, he lives the good life and tries very hard to convince the reader he never wanted it in the first place.
The third act is one long love letter to his son. Sound touching? Well, I don't think it was in the same sense as he was accused of "touching" his daughters but in descriptive tone it is not far off. He very clearly loved his boy something fierce just not illegally.
Reading this book in the wake of #metoo gives one a lot of pause. This book is famed for being highly fictionalized but even if a fraction of it were true this guy and Weinstein could compare notes. It's seductive in how affronting and provocative it can be. He truly was a master of invectives but it certainly lacks in anything substantive. Read it if you're the old fashioned sort and prefer your porn in literary form. Don't read it if you like amusing anecdotes about life on the sets of famous films.
September 14, 2007
trashy, depraved, and full of shit. i couldn't recommend it more!
December 8, 2008
I could never write a review that would do this book justice. There are some amazing monomaniacal memoirs out there. For example The Dirt by Motley Crue, or John Lydon's No Dogs, No Irish, but then there is this. Kinski is either totally insane or an amazing liar. I don't know which, but the way he recounts his life and his sex life is something to behold. Why it is so difficult to get a hold of his two auto-biographies is beyond me. They should be perennial best-sellers. Just for any interaction he writes about with Werner Herzog is worth reading this book, and that doesn't take into account the wonderful wartime stories that he has, or his preteen sex life, that is more active than probably anyone's normal life. So great, so insane. Thank you Karen for bringing this book into my life!!!
July 24, 2007
Klaus Kinski slept with everyone in Europe, including his own mother. Also, he was an actor.
(Werner Herzog maintains, as do many close friends of the late Kinski, that this autobiography is almost pure fiction. Aren't they all, though?)
(Werner Herzog maintains, as do many close friends of the late Kinski, that this autobiography is almost pure fiction. Aren't they all, though?)
October 5, 2009
I don't mean to state the obvious, but...
Kinski was INSANE! This book is shocking and hilarious; most of it is lies, I am convinced . Kinski painted any woman who wouldn't sleep with him with a "bitch/dyke" brush (for instance, his Fairy Tale Theater co-star Susan Sarandon) and shamelessly lusted after mother, sister, and daughter. His perspective on the human race is mostly hateful, and I found myself really hating Kinski. However, there is an ongoing reverence for nature throughout his narration that I found touching.
Two more things: his violent Herzog rants are hilarious, and he constantly compares female genitals to fruit and vise versa.
I read All I Need is Love right after reading the Sandra Lee autobiography, Made From Scratch. If you want two accounts of troubled, impoverished childhoods and their polar opposite outcomes, read these back to back.
Kinski was INSANE! This book is shocking and hilarious; most of it is lies, I am convinced . Kinski painted any woman who wouldn't sleep with him with a "bitch/dyke" brush (for instance, his Fairy Tale Theater co-star Susan Sarandon) and shamelessly lusted after mother, sister, and daughter. His perspective on the human race is mostly hateful, and I found myself really hating Kinski. However, there is an ongoing reverence for nature throughout his narration that I found touching.
Two more things: his violent Herzog rants are hilarious, and he constantly compares female genitals to fruit and vise versa.
I read All I Need is Love right after reading the Sandra Lee autobiography, Made From Scratch. If you want two accounts of troubled, impoverished childhoods and their polar opposite outcomes, read these back to back.
December 17, 2007
I didn't really feel the need to finish reading Kinski's autobiography--he was German, he had major issues, maybe he sometimes thought he was Jesus, etc.--but parts of it are absolutely hilarious. I recommend reading Kinski's anecdotes about Werner Herzog--in particular his tale of Herzog stealing his food--and then watching Herzog's documentary about his dealings with Kinski, My Best Fiend. Because that's what friendship is about, really--stolen food and attempted assassinations. BFFs 4-ever!
January 30, 2009
You can basically open this book and quote something awesome.
"I hold on to a street light and think that this is the end. I pull out the kitchen knife and stick it down my throat like a sword swallower. And then it happens. The boil breaks! And I puke half a liter of pus into the gutter. Now I'm rid of everything and my pains are gone."
"When Barlog refuses to cast me as the lead in Ah, Wilderness! I smash the windowpanes of the Schlossparktheater. My one-year contract is not renewed. But I would have lost my mind anyway and starved to death among these barnstormers."
"I hold on to a street light and think that this is the end. I pull out the kitchen knife and stick it down my throat like a sword swallower. And then it happens. The boil breaks! And I puke half a liter of pus into the gutter. Now I'm rid of everything and my pains are gone."
"When Barlog refuses to cast me as the lead in Ah, Wilderness! I smash the windowpanes of the Schlossparktheater. My one-year contract is not renewed. But I would have lost my mind anyway and starved to death among these barnstormers."
May 11, 2009
“These girls can’t be picky; they fuck with men of all races from all four corners or the world and they probably catch every conceivable kind of V.D. But I not only screw them without a rubber, I also eat our their pussies. I know its crazy. But I want to love them, I want them to feel that I love them and that I need love. That I am dying for love.”
i read this book after watching herzog’s my best fiend. herzog claims that the book was largely fabricated to generate sales. aside from all that--what interested me most is his skills as a pornographer. 318 pages of “muff-diving feasts” & he never once repeats a description. even when he is discussing something totally legit--scripts, the countryside, his hatred of X--the prose is peppered with “i’d rather fuck the usherette, whose panties smell so intoxicating that my nuts ache” or “I talk to no one and eat nothing. At night I can’t sleep a wink, I just stare at the ceiling. Every so often I go to the toilet and examine my hard-on. Then I lie down and stare at the ceiling again.”
the passages regarding his second wife minhoi & their child ninhoi are incredibly tender even if he treated minhoi like shit in real life. his dealings with women are just about the only place where he shows any kind of remorse for his actions.
i read this book after watching herzog’s my best fiend. herzog claims that the book was largely fabricated to generate sales. aside from all that--what interested me most is his skills as a pornographer. 318 pages of “muff-diving feasts” & he never once repeats a description. even when he is discussing something totally legit--scripts, the countryside, his hatred of X--the prose is peppered with “i’d rather fuck the usherette, whose panties smell so intoxicating that my nuts ache” or “I talk to no one and eat nothing. At night I can’t sleep a wink, I just stare at the ceiling. Every so often I go to the toilet and examine my hard-on. Then I lie down and stare at the ceiling again.”
the passages regarding his second wife minhoi & their child ninhoi are incredibly tender even if he treated minhoi like shit in real life. his dealings with women are just about the only place where he shows any kind of remorse for his actions.
May 8, 2014
Times have changed since a major publishing house issued Klaus Kinski’s Kinski Uncut, and maybe not changed for the better. Initially released in 1988 under the title All I Need Is Love, the German actor’s seething, potty-mouthed autobiography is apt to estrange any readers offended by graphic depictions of wanton boning and a blanket context of objectification that reduces female human beings to the sum of their orifices and secondary sexual characteristics and dumps the males of the species into the moron and bastard bins. The prose and the narrator’s intent are akin to the obscene vigor of Hustler magazine’s “Hot Letters” section from the same day and age. (If anyone is qualified to make that comparison, I am.) Kinski’s words are on the page to remove all assumption of comfort from life’s presumed consolations. Kinski Uncut further piles steaming heaps of vile acrimony upon former coworkers and collaborators, many of them revered legends of literature, stage and screen. I have heard rumors, which I’d be pleased to verify, that the original All I Need Is Love is an even more unexpurgated screed against all things civilized and correct than the later Kinski Uncut version. Neither book would be likely to reach the public in 2014. Is it bad that I miss the wrong old days?
December 25, 2013
Still reading. Every page is full of cunts, twats, fucks, pussies, and general ragings against all the imbeciles populating Kinski's life. (And I'm reading it in translation! Can you imagine the translator trying to decide which slang for female reproductive organ to use in each instance? Good lord.) If he doesn't start talking about Herzog soon, I'm giving up.
[Update: Didn't finish. Gross. For Kinski completists only, maybe.]
[Update: Didn't finish. Gross. For Kinski completists only, maybe.]
Want to read
February 27, 2011Nobody mentions his daughter, Nastassja Kinski. (I always wanted to give her one from the heart.) Can you imagine spending the first 10 years of your life with Klaus, then starting a relationship with Roman Polanski when you were 16. Strangely, their relationship ended before she turned 20.
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September 9, 2025[Nicht bewertbar.] Kein Buch, das irgendjemand zweimal lesen sollte, aber here we are.
January 25, 2025
Incredible. A book written by a wild animal. How much is true? How much is fiction? It doesn't even matter. An elaborate howl. The autobiography of a demon that tore around the Earth. Exactly what you would expect from the man with the face of Klaus Kinski.
Highly recommended reading if you don't mind gratuitous pornographic scenes. It's all just so over-the-top I could not even take it seriously at all anahaha
Gross about how he treated his daughter Pola, though. Absolutely inexcusable.
Highly recommended reading if you don't mind gratuitous pornographic scenes. It's all just so over-the-top I could not even take it seriously at all anahaha
Gross about how he treated his daughter Pola, though. Absolutely inexcusable.
March 4, 2008
Diary of a gibbering batshit insane sex-crazed madman. Just... absolutely ridiculous. I suppose if you're not already a fan of the late, great Klaus Kinski, you won't enjoy this half as much as I did.
January 26, 2021
God, this man was crazy.
Long before this book, I have seen one of his westerns. But due to His minor role I never knew Him.
Book's title is fantastic. Drawn by Kinski Himslef. Surely impressed me to look for this book.
Klaus Kinski was born to a very beautiful woman and a singer turned pharmacist. He was born into a extremely poor family and there are uncountable nights mentioned in this book which he spent in streets after when His mother died in WWII. This was, when he was drafted in army and returned back.
I won't say the book is bad but His claims about getting laid with random and uncountable women just makes it phony. Still He fabricates stories with great style. He's blunt and lethal.
I could never detect this fabrication untilI hadn't read His journey about Lahore, Pakistan.
"A city in a desert, camels passing by and Hamalyan mountains are visible."
COME ON MAN. Lahore is never ever near to any desert and You have born with world's most powerful telescope as eyes to spot Hamalyas from Lahore.
I doubt you really came here.
All book is written in present indefinite tense. The parts of the book which I can sense are genuine ; His hard childhood, His feelings for His son Nikolai and Lessons learnt in professional life as an actor.
An interesting read nevertheless.
Long before this book, I have seen one of his westerns. But due to His minor role I never knew Him.
Book's title is fantastic. Drawn by Kinski Himslef. Surely impressed me to look for this book.
Klaus Kinski was born to a very beautiful woman and a singer turned pharmacist. He was born into a extremely poor family and there are uncountable nights mentioned in this book which he spent in streets after when His mother died in WWII. This was, when he was drafted in army and returned back.
I won't say the book is bad but His claims about getting laid with random and uncountable women just makes it phony. Still He fabricates stories with great style. He's blunt and lethal.
I could never detect this fabrication untilI hadn't read His journey about Lahore, Pakistan.
"A city in a desert, camels passing by and Hamalyan mountains are visible."
COME ON MAN. Lahore is never ever near to any desert and You have born with world's most powerful telescope as eyes to spot Hamalyas from Lahore.
I doubt you really came here.
All book is written in present indefinite tense. The parts of the book which I can sense are genuine ; His hard childhood, His feelings for His son Nikolai and Lessons learnt in professional life as an actor.
An interesting read nevertheless.
September 20, 2009
Portrait of the actor as a crazed sex maniac?
Dang. It can be said that this book is the messy result of Klaus Kinski’s throbbing egomania. Insane, relentless, and disgusting. Kinski recounts his numerous sexual exploits. Somehow he slept with all women that he encountered. Of course, Kinski also recounts his squalor-filled youth (bedbug infested), his acting experiences (he only accepted big cash), his hatred for directors (Herzog bears the brunt, duh), and his marriages (though he rarely went into detail). To his credit, Kinski seemed to feel some regret about how he treated his last wife, the mother of his son. His relationship with her was rocky. Kinski had an intense devotion to his son, which was a little more creepy than endearing. There may be kernels of truth in this book, but I think it’s largely fiction masquerading as a memoir.
The descriptions are hilarious and cringe-inducing. The translator chose mainly American colloquial language for the book, which made it all weirder. Nonetheless, I was quite entertained. I’d give the book an extra star if I didn’t end up shell-shocked 3/4 into it.
Dang. It can be said that this book is the messy result of Klaus Kinski’s throbbing egomania. Insane, relentless, and disgusting. Kinski recounts his numerous sexual exploits. Somehow he slept with all women that he encountered. Of course, Kinski also recounts his squalor-filled youth (bedbug infested), his acting experiences (he only accepted big cash), his hatred for directors (Herzog bears the brunt, duh), and his marriages (though he rarely went into detail). To his credit, Kinski seemed to feel some regret about how he treated his last wife, the mother of his son. His relationship with her was rocky. Kinski had an intense devotion to his son, which was a little more creepy than endearing. There may be kernels of truth in this book, but I think it’s largely fiction masquerading as a memoir.
The descriptions are hilarious and cringe-inducing. The translator chose mainly American colloquial language for the book, which made it all weirder. Nonetheless, I was quite entertained. I’d give the book an extra star if I didn’t end up shell-shocked 3/4 into it.
January 6, 2010
An autobiography so dirty, so depraved that it would reduce a book club comprised of Henry Miller, Phillip Roth and the Marquis De Sade to a series of blushing embarrassed silences. Just when you start to tire of his endless (possibly, hopefully delusional) recounting of his sexual conquests, he'll toss off a description of coupling with such breathtaking scatalogical or bestial originality, or sometimes both, you just have to chuckle and tip your hat. And I haven't even gotten to the crazy yet. I need to wash my brain after reading this.
Suffice to say, I loved it.
Suffice to say, I loved it.
July 17, 2018
Me costo mucho terminarlo, a veces tedioso lleno de falacias que escandalizan y dan risa, me quede esperando que hablara mas de la hija y sin duda, nunca habia leido palabras mas bellas de un padre a su hijo
April 28, 2007
When I purchased this book, I thought of it as a guilty pleasure. Now I just feel guilty that I'm wasting my time on this trash instead of reading actual literature.
July 23, 2014
Makes the Marquis de Sade's 120 DAYS OF SODOM look like PAT THE BUNNY.
July 9, 2018
He was a real pervert and sick person. You definitely have to read it for a deeper understanding of his psyche. Sometimes really disgusting!
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December 20, 2025Ich weiss gar nicht was ich sagen soll. Ich weiss nicht ob irgendjemand dieses Buch lesen sollte, oder ob es als Charakterstudie nur Psychologiestudenten als Abschlusslektüre präsentiert werden sollte. Ehrlich gesagt ist es selbst dafür zu makaber.
Allein die Existenz dieses Werkes spiegelt Kinskis Charakter perfekt wieder. Dieses Buch ist für niemanden geeignet, es gibt keinen Grund warum man das hätte schreiben sollen außer um seine Persona sowohl für die Öffentlichkeit als auch für sich selbst weiter zu festigen. Das Buch ist wirr und bizarr, wahrscheinlich ist nichtmal ein drittel von dem was Kinski hier schildert wirklich passiert(vieles wurde schon durch Zeitzeugen widerlegt), aber das spielt eigentlich auch keine wirkliche Rolle.
Ziemlich schnell wird deutlich, dass er ein wirklich gestörter Mensch war, in jeglicher Hinsicht. Er führt eine bizarre Beziehung mit sich selbst in der er sich immer wieder im Kampf mit seiner Natur aussetzt, die er scheinbar als eine Art „rohe unantastbare Existenz“ ansieht, welche er zwar erkennt und auch reflektiert/kritisiert, aber nie wirklich als Problem behandelt. Er kann schlichtweg nicht anders, als sich seinen Trieben und Instinkten hinzugeben, was besonders deutlich wird sobald sein Leben eine künstlerische Wendung nimmt. Wow noch nie einen so fetten Künstler-Komplex in Aktion erlebt.
Es fühlt sich ein bisschen an als würde man versuchen Hitler zu verteidigen wenn man zu diesem Buch etwas anderes zu sagen hat, als das es ein widerlicher Haufen unmenschlicher Erzählungen ist, aber Kinski ist für mich ein ähnlich faszinierender wie auch abstossender Charakter. Wie schon gesagt kann man ihm die „Purität“ seiner Lebensart nicht wirklich absprechen, und auch seine Auseinandersetzung mit sich selbst als Künstler-Persona und seine überraschende Reflektiertheit formen ihn für mich nicht als das pure Böse sondern eher als ein riesengrosses Fragezeichen in der Geschichte der Menschheit.
Besonders interessant und vielleicht auch nennenswert sind hier die Abschnitte in denen er mit einer Sonnenblume durch Berlin läuft, und der in dem er die Begegnung mit einem jungen Mädchen in einem Zug beschreibt, auch wenn ich niemandem empfehlen kann letzteres selbst zu Lesen.
Ich leide seit einer Woche an maximalem Schlafentzug und dieses Buch hat mich für 2 Tage durch komplett Schlaflose Nächte begleitet. Keine Ahnung was das bedeutet.
Allein die Existenz dieses Werkes spiegelt Kinskis Charakter perfekt wieder. Dieses Buch ist für niemanden geeignet, es gibt keinen Grund warum man das hätte schreiben sollen außer um seine Persona sowohl für die Öffentlichkeit als auch für sich selbst weiter zu festigen. Das Buch ist wirr und bizarr, wahrscheinlich ist nichtmal ein drittel von dem was Kinski hier schildert wirklich passiert(vieles wurde schon durch Zeitzeugen widerlegt), aber das spielt eigentlich auch keine wirkliche Rolle.
Ziemlich schnell wird deutlich, dass er ein wirklich gestörter Mensch war, in jeglicher Hinsicht. Er führt eine bizarre Beziehung mit sich selbst in der er sich immer wieder im Kampf mit seiner Natur aussetzt, die er scheinbar als eine Art „rohe unantastbare Existenz“ ansieht, welche er zwar erkennt und auch reflektiert/kritisiert, aber nie wirklich als Problem behandelt. Er kann schlichtweg nicht anders, als sich seinen Trieben und Instinkten hinzugeben, was besonders deutlich wird sobald sein Leben eine künstlerische Wendung nimmt. Wow noch nie einen so fetten Künstler-Komplex in Aktion erlebt.
Es fühlt sich ein bisschen an als würde man versuchen Hitler zu verteidigen wenn man zu diesem Buch etwas anderes zu sagen hat, als das es ein widerlicher Haufen unmenschlicher Erzählungen ist, aber Kinski ist für mich ein ähnlich faszinierender wie auch abstossender Charakter. Wie schon gesagt kann man ihm die „Purität“ seiner Lebensart nicht wirklich absprechen, und auch seine Auseinandersetzung mit sich selbst als Künstler-Persona und seine überraschende Reflektiertheit formen ihn für mich nicht als das pure Böse sondern eher als ein riesengrosses Fragezeichen in der Geschichte der Menschheit.
Besonders interessant und vielleicht auch nennenswert sind hier die Abschnitte in denen er mit einer Sonnenblume durch Berlin läuft, und der in dem er die Begegnung mit einem jungen Mädchen in einem Zug beschreibt, auch wenn ich niemandem empfehlen kann letzteres selbst zu Lesen.
Ich leide seit einer Woche an maximalem Schlafentzug und dieses Buch hat mich für 2 Tage durch komplett Schlaflose Nächte begleitet. Keine Ahnung was das bedeutet.
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October 18, 2023chapters 1 and 4 are an interesting venture into the mind of a madman, a psychotic creature since childhood.
chapter 2 is revolting, fuck after fuck no matter the age, the constant mention of body parts that made the book reek of filthy man-sex.
chapter 3 is a love letter to his son, who he is so in love with, and minhoi, his third wife, whom he is absolutely obsessed with, not letting her leave his sight even if for a second.
klaus kinski narrates his exasperating life in what is, paradoxically, a frantic dullness. i met this woman got into her pants then i met another and then i moved houses from paris to munich and then i fucked another person. a lot of the of the book is just that.
but then, there are splinters of inadvertedly chuckle-inducing passages that reveal the hypocrisy of a terrible man who tries to make the reader believe that, in reality, everyone around him are the ones who are detestable. the passages on Herzog are actually funny, the way he labels him as a complete dunce who time after time returns to his ingenius acting. in the end he is alone, as he should have always been, and the only one around is none other than Herzog - "I call Minhoi from Manaus in the Brazilian jungle. She hangs up on me. Herzog comes to the airport to embrace me. I feel sick."
chapter 2 is revolting, fuck after fuck no matter the age, the constant mention of body parts that made the book reek of filthy man-sex.
chapter 3 is a love letter to his son, who he is so in love with, and minhoi, his third wife, whom he is absolutely obsessed with, not letting her leave his sight even if for a second.
klaus kinski narrates his exasperating life in what is, paradoxically, a frantic dullness. i met this woman got into her pants then i met another and then i moved houses from paris to munich and then i fucked another person. a lot of the of the book is just that.
but then, there are splinters of inadvertedly chuckle-inducing passages that reveal the hypocrisy of a terrible man who tries to make the reader believe that, in reality, everyone around him are the ones who are detestable. the passages on Herzog are actually funny, the way he labels him as a complete dunce who time after time returns to his ingenius acting. in the end he is alone, as he should have always been, and the only one around is none other than Herzog - "I call Minhoi from Manaus in the Brazilian jungle. She hangs up on me. Herzog comes to the airport to embrace me. I feel sick."
March 1, 2021
DNF. Not worth. Just rambling on without rhyme or reason. I guess the graphic sex memoirs made the ratings high. So much for literary taste.
June 2, 2025
After watching a number of Werner Herzog's interviews about Kinski, I thought I'd satisfy my curiosity and read this ... umm... "autobiography". Knew exactly what to expect in terms of its explicit content and questionable accuracy and was definitely cautious of the seemingly high ratings of this book. Personally, I found it to be a rather pathetic imitation of De Sade's libertinism. Kinski's elliptical writing was patchy, evasive and its sole goal was to shock, which didn't really work on me—his is the kind of vacuous boasting one would expect from a narcissist and a coward.
Given all of the horror stories of Kinski's volatile and violent behaviour throughout his acting career, I'm bewildered that people continued to hire him. Was theatre and cinema world really that bereft of decent actors? I appreciate this might be of value to some cinema history buffs but to me this book did nothing but satisfy my morbid curiosity.
Given all of the horror stories of Kinski's volatile and violent behaviour throughout his acting career, I'm bewildered that people continued to hire him. Was theatre and cinema world really that bereft of decent actors? I appreciate this might be of value to some cinema history buffs but to me this book did nothing but satisfy my morbid curiosity.
March 23, 2011
I'm not going to top Lucy Ross's review. Goodreaders from 2007 and 2008 are so annoying. They get in there and write all the good reviews, have all the good ideas, etc. before all of us late bloomers get the chance. It isn't fair. Does anyone else have that problem? I have that problem.
He DID try to eat a live cow. I hope that was true. Please let that be true!
There's a scene in Tom Dicillo's film Box of Moonlight that describes how I feel about Klaus Kinski and his book. Sam Rockwell plays this whim-led guy, the Kid (he also lives off the grid). The Kid tells Al Fountain (my favorite actor in the world, John Turturro) why he is always wearing this Davey Crockett outfit. The Kid had been an extra in a play about Davey Crockett. One day when no one else is around he tries on Davey's costume. "It fit me so right I just took it."
This shit fits me right. I don't know how. I don't know why. I'm gonna take it! I dug the hell out of the way he delivers all of his information (if you can call it that). Some of it painful as hell. I rolled my eyes after a while of constant sex. Yet there was just.... something about him. (Good job at describing this, Mar.)
The ending is like a John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Sean Lennon love triangle. I don't know if I buy that that love is "redemptive". I think (in my years after the fact, has nothing at all to do with me way. I'm all judge-y from afar. I don't have kids, either!) it is more calming for a man desperate for something he never really found in all the ways he tried to find it. I don't think Kinski made a case for loving one person so intensely (or that being a baby makes you purer than any other loveable person) that it transformed. I don't know. I just kept thinking about Yoko Ono. I really got that vibe from those parts of the book.
Suffering through that had as devastating an impact on me as if I hadn't only always suffered as Woyzeck but continue to do so over and over. Malaria of the soul, recurring again and again. My total being is one large breeding ground for the shocks of the world past, present, and future. All living and dying, all vibrations pass through me. The entire universe pours into me, rages in me, rampages through me and over me. Annihilates me. It comes and goes wherever it likes. It rules me, commands me, envelops me, threatens me, and waits for me everywhere and all the time. It sucks me up, sucks me dry, grows through me. It's in my spinal marrow. In my brain mass. In my blood, in my bones. My muscles. Guts. Genitals. Sperm. Flesh. Eyes. Hearing. Taste. Smell. Balance. Laughter. Tears. In my days and my nights. In my thoughts. In my feelings. In my courage and my fear. In my despair and my hope. In my weakness and strength. Everywhere and all the time.
Kinski wrote that his son's love would save him from that wound in his soul. The wound he used to pick over whenever it began to heal. Maybe I'm still in the old place of his movies. I feel drawn to (for lack of a better word in my knowledge) act it out. You can't learn how to feel all of those things but it is how I can feel that difference in me, and in others. Kinski is one of my favorites to do that with.
I liked that his "memoir" was acting himself. It doesn't make sense to know any of it is true. It was good to feel something.
I was bothered by the Yoko Ono part of the book. That he was doing something wrong with how he lived and loved. A lot was said and written about Kinski being intense, being crazy. How else can you do it but as yourself? He had a drive to move towards something. I was really bothered by it and upset. It was a really lonely and sad end of him being alone without his son.
I think that's why I love this book so much. That it was about that, even if MOST of the book is sex scenes (that was like when you listen to someone brag about themselves and you wait for them to stop telling you how to feel about them so you can decide if you feel anything about them at all. I should've just said when people try to impress you. That feeling like they KNOW what will impress you, without bothering to know YOU at all). It's about yearning and trying for love and not knowing that that is what is anyone else's heart at all. And he was an actor who was making a living out of being someone else. His memoir is being him through being someone else? I get the feeling of what that meant to him (even if he hated it in the end).
Why can't I go into the jungle and have a burden of dreams? To become another person, their heart and soul, show those dark spaces and shadows in their minds?
He DID try to eat a live cow. I hope that was true. Please let that be true!
There's a scene in Tom Dicillo's film Box of Moonlight that describes how I feel about Klaus Kinski and his book. Sam Rockwell plays this whim-led guy, the Kid (he also lives off the grid). The Kid tells Al Fountain (my favorite actor in the world, John Turturro) why he is always wearing this Davey Crockett outfit. The Kid had been an extra in a play about Davey Crockett. One day when no one else is around he tries on Davey's costume. "It fit me so right I just took it."
This shit fits me right. I don't know how. I don't know why. I'm gonna take it! I dug the hell out of the way he delivers all of his information (if you can call it that). Some of it painful as hell. I rolled my eyes after a while of constant sex. Yet there was just.... something about him. (Good job at describing this, Mar.)
The ending is like a John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Sean Lennon love triangle. I don't know if I buy that that love is "redemptive". I think (in my years after the fact, has nothing at all to do with me way. I'm all judge-y from afar. I don't have kids, either!) it is more calming for a man desperate for something he never really found in all the ways he tried to find it. I don't think Kinski made a case for loving one person so intensely (or that being a baby makes you purer than any other loveable person) that it transformed. I don't know. I just kept thinking about Yoko Ono. I really got that vibe from those parts of the book.
Suffering through that had as devastating an impact on me as if I hadn't only always suffered as Woyzeck but continue to do so over and over. Malaria of the soul, recurring again and again. My total being is one large breeding ground for the shocks of the world past, present, and future. All living and dying, all vibrations pass through me. The entire universe pours into me, rages in me, rampages through me and over me. Annihilates me. It comes and goes wherever it likes. It rules me, commands me, envelops me, threatens me, and waits for me everywhere and all the time. It sucks me up, sucks me dry, grows through me. It's in my spinal marrow. In my brain mass. In my blood, in my bones. My muscles. Guts. Genitals. Sperm. Flesh. Eyes. Hearing. Taste. Smell. Balance. Laughter. Tears. In my days and my nights. In my thoughts. In my feelings. In my courage and my fear. In my despair and my hope. In my weakness and strength. Everywhere and all the time.
Kinski wrote that his son's love would save him from that wound in his soul. The wound he used to pick over whenever it began to heal. Maybe I'm still in the old place of his movies. I feel drawn to (for lack of a better word in my knowledge) act it out. You can't learn how to feel all of those things but it is how I can feel that difference in me, and in others. Kinski is one of my favorites to do that with.
I liked that his "memoir" was acting himself. It doesn't make sense to know any of it is true. It was good to feel something.
I was bothered by the Yoko Ono part of the book. That he was doing something wrong with how he lived and loved. A lot was said and written about Kinski being intense, being crazy. How else can you do it but as yourself? He had a drive to move towards something. I was really bothered by it and upset. It was a really lonely and sad end of him being alone without his son.
I think that's why I love this book so much. That it was about that, even if MOST of the book is sex scenes (that was like when you listen to someone brag about themselves and you wait for them to stop telling you how to feel about them so you can decide if you feel anything about them at all. I should've just said when people try to impress you. That feeling like they KNOW what will impress you, without bothering to know YOU at all). It's about yearning and trying for love and not knowing that that is what is anyone else's heart at all. And he was an actor who was making a living out of being someone else. His memoir is being him through being someone else? I get the feeling of what that meant to him (even if he hated it in the end).
Why can't I go into the jungle and have a burden of dreams? To become another person, their heart and soul, show those dark spaces and shadows in their minds?
February 6, 2024
الفيلم هو اللي خلاني اقرأ الكتاب ده
June 14, 2014
Really disappointing. I keep reading on, hoping it will turn into something I want to know about this tortured, gifted actor. There is just so much in his career he could have written about extensively (Paths of Glory, Nosferatu (in detail), Fitzcarraldo (in detail). I wanted to know what made him tick. Instead, I am reading this big bowl of crazy (i.e. having sex with anyone and everything) which borders on pathology (or crosses the border.)Every damn page he is having sex with something or someone is coming onto him and, of course, he has to do them.His brushes with the law, desertion from the German Army at sixteen and being a POW in Britain,mental hospital commitment, would have made interesting, informative reading. It would have given us real insight into the character of this man. Instead, I think he doesn't want us to have insight into his character; he alienates the reader using his bizarre sexual antics, real or imagined. It keeps us from knowing him which is what I think the intention of this book was. He probably got an enormous advance, wrote a nutty book then had a good laugh. I'm afraid we'll never know him, which is sad. He seems to have had a real love for children and animals, but he mentions those things only in passing.Don't buy this book, if you are reading it right now, give up on it. It isn't going to get better. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.There is nothing he wants to tell us.
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