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Charlie Chaplin and His Times

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Charlie Chaplin and His Times

By: Kenneth S. Lynn
Narrated by: Adams Morgan
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About this listen

 With the psychologically penetrating insight that marked his award-winning Hemingway, Kenneth Lynn probes beneath the mystique of the "Little Tramp", the first truly worldwide celebrity. This landmark, full-scale biography reveals the inner man whose unmatched comic genius masked a complex, sometimes tragic life.

Lynn delves into Chaplin's childhood and family, his often controversial relationships with four wives and a slew of mistresses, and his associations with British music-hall impresario Fred Karno and silent-screen star and pal Douglas Fairbanks. He addresses Chaplin's political influences and convictions, and brings a keen, critical intelligence to the meaning of the films, illuminating Chaplin's elusive genius.

©1997 Kenneth S. Lynn (P)1997 Blackstone Audio Inc. Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Funny

Critic reviews

"Kenneth S. Lynn...has produced an enormous, often fascinating, prodigiously researched book that goes off in all directions in search of the man behind the myth." ( The New York Times)
"Chaplin's life is truly an enormous subject...and Lynn does a magisterial job of knitting it all together, allowing Chaplin to emerge as fresh and evocative as the Little Tramp in his first incarnation." ( Booklist)
"Lynn deftly interweaves Chaplin's life with the events and personalities of his era....Lynn has done meticulous research....All a biography should be, this is enthusiastically recommended." ( Library Journal)
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I agree with a previous reviewer here. The author seems to dislike his subject so much that I wonder why he chose to write about him in the first place.
At the same time it also strongly comes across that he feels there was nothing wrong with the behaviour of the McCarthy trials in the 1950’s and that Chaplin and others entirely deserved the treatment they got.
There are also passages where the author puts himself into the narrative which I always feel, unless they have a significant connection to the life of the subject, is just a bit tacky.
Not all in all bad. It does have a lot of factual information but you have to mine for it beneath almost endless tangents and the irritating opinions of the author.

Author's strange dislike for Chaplin

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