Solomon is a very good writer and her ability to capture images and moods is continually shattered by her excessive (and striclty amateur attempts at) psychoanalysis. For me personally, it was a constant irritant that ruined what would otherwise be a wonderful and fascinating biography.

like all the other reviewers i have an immense interest in cornell. however i found deborah solomon's constant psychological asides both banal and ultimately dulling. every page has some fatuous and often risible so-called apercu. i wanted a biography, not some fanciful and very dated exercise in psychoanalysis. shame cos there is a lot of enjoyable fact offered. cornell's own selected diary and letters published under the title The Theatre of the Mind, is the only authority on his thinking as far as i am concerned. this biographical arrogance of reducing an artist's life to a sequence of supposedly transparent motivations is so passe surely.

This is definitely one of my favorite books of all time. There are plenty of reviews already that pick apart details and issues, so I'll keep this short. The book states that Cornell was a man of many obsessions and who got a certain delight out of a certain celebrity voyeurism, this book is perfect for people who hold that sort of voyeuristic thirst for Cornell himself or can relate and understand to the hermetic lifestyle he chose for himself.

I checked this book out at the local library along with a text on how to transfer course units from a business major into psychology. This book made the reference text read like a novel. Truly dreadful. Avoid this even if it's free.

Jackson Pollock is the fascinating and well crafted biography of a truly remarkable and influential American painter who held himself to the most demanding standards. Biographer Deborah Solomon interviewed more than two hundred people to reconstruct Pollock's brilliant yet contrary and sometimes self-destructive life. A most critical and detail-filled look at a very complicated artist and a highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library art history and biography collections.