[ebooks] A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart by Gary Marmorstein in Arts-Photography

Review

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Good Historical Detail. Little Personal InsightBy Michael LeakeSo little in the way of biography exists about the great lyricist Lorenz "Larry" Hart that this book is a welcome addition for that reason alone. Author Gary Marmorstein does a good job of quoting and celebrating his incredibly witty and creative lyrics. I give it 4 stars for that reason. But based solely on its merits. I would probably rate this biography more of a 3-star effort.Its filled with details about the various Rodgers and Hart shows. For those keenly interested in the history of musicals. this is probably of great interest. For the more casual reader. the minutia is probably overkill. What I feel this biography lacks is any real insight into the character of Larry Hart.We learn that he drank to excess from the earliest days of his involvement with writing partner Richard Rodgers and that this increased as the years wore on. leading to Hart becoming less and less reliable until he was uninterested in working by the end of 1942. His homosexuality is mentioned. We find out he was incredibly self-conscious about his short stature. standing barely 5 feet tall. and thought himself ugly due to his head being oversized for his body. But we never really find out anything about the inner man and what made him tick.I came away from this book feeling I knew quite a bit about the history of one of Broadways greatest lyricists but. at the same time. knew almost nothing about him at all. Perhaps Hart was so secretive about his personal life that this information simply was unavailable or difficult to acquire. But it seems more could have been done in elucidating the personal side of Hart and not just the professional one.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Good Book that Could Have Used Some EditingBy PasqualeI purchased this book because I enjoy reading about the lives of gifted artists. authors. and musicians. Hart certainly was one of them. I enjoyed the book most when Marmorstein created a rich social. political. and historical context for Harts life and work. I admire the research he did to write this book. His list of acknowledgments alone traces the extensive library and archival sources he used. I think at times the book gets a bit bogged down in granular detail about every show. play. and song. I didnt need to know all this detail to appreciate the story of Harts life and talent. The book was best when the author concentrated on the "big picture" rather than minute details. I found that I was skimming some passages that became kind of tedious with all the facts. some of which were not all that interesting or relevant to understanding Harts life. At times the book read more like a dissertation with an excessive amount of documentation. It could have used some editing. For example. at the end. when the author is describing Harts funeral and burial. he devotes space in the text to giving subway directions to get to the cemetery in Queens where the Hart family is buried. I think a footnote would have been more appropriate at that point. Still. Hart was a fascinating subject for a book. and Marmorstein did his "homework" to create an expansiveand rich account of his life. Despite my criticisms. I am glad I read it. I have a better understanding of Harts role in the emergence of musical theatre and the Great American Song Book.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. About as Good as it Can Get on Known DataBy drkhimxzThis is a fine book for anyone interested in the life and times of Larry Hart. one of the creators of 20th Century American Song. Happily there are thoroughgoing descriptive and analytic reviews on this web page; I see no need to add anything but reinforcement to the recommendation that this is a very readable and reliable source for the interested reader. I will add only one point about which I was curious as to how it would be handled by the author: that is. how would he deal with the Black Star of Harts Life. The answer is. he did about the best one can do without resorting to psychobabble or imaginative reconstruction of the unknown from the little known. So far as I can tell. to this date. there exists no body of personal letters from Hart. no detailed diaries. not even multiple source intimate accountings. of that part of his life which existed behind the iron curtain between it and the part he lived with Richard Rodgers. his younger brother Teddy. and. in fact. nearly all the old Columbia University. summer camp. Broadway and Hollywood acquaintances. Apparently. the ubiquitous ex-dentist. Bender. who was the only known regular participant with him. left nothing to biographical history. by which light could be cast on him. when he was deep in the shadows. It is assumed that he was a homosexual. Yet we do not have a single fact clearly supporting the notion that he ever engaged in an actual sexual act with another man. He did have homosexual buddies. he had heterosexual buddies. He knew women in his public life and never did much with them...as far as we know. He is likely to have gone to the baths and other centers of homosexual life in NYC. when it was an illegal act; but. so did many men who were not homsexual. Are we assured that he never was active at Stella Adlers. center for so much show business and political heterosexual activity. did he never have a "kept" woman in one of the infinite number of private apartments available to a rich man. The answer is. to date. we do not know. (From this book we do know that. in his dying days. he suffered from gonorrhea. which allows us to assume that he had some form of sexuality.It is not only the sexual activity that is masked by this iron curtain. Do we know for certain that in the shadows. more or less. he never ghosted the writing of lyricsof songs orparts of the books of shows. just to help one friend or another...or. given his gregariousness. almost anyone. Are there classic songs. outstanding theatrical events. that are Harts and not the one to which they are attributed.I stress the first point. in particular. because I expect. if the best of the club singers. of the good middle of the road singers. still sing Rodgers and Hart. someone is going to give us deep analysis of the "real" Larry Hart. when. there is a good chance that there will be no more data available than there is today on which to ground it. (Given that many collections of private papers are donated on the basis of no public availability until fifty. a hundred. or what have you. number of years after the death of...(for example. anyone mentioned in the papers). there is always the hope that more will be known of the "Private Life" of this man who has given so many of us greatjoy through his lyrics.