Recollecting Charlie

"Charles Chaplin was always a theme for extra writing and less precise and perfect description than most of his equals all the way through the years. He took pleasure in the inconsistent and impossible standing of being the man everybody knew yet nobody knew. Cosseted by a self-imposed segregation in his private life, he had, nonetheless, definite melodramatic chapters in his life, affairs and marriages, their successive and succeeding disbanding and also political attack, splashed on the main pages of American newspapers and magazines for weeks and months at a time.

He was King of Comedy by commendation; King of Tragedy by the unpromising gifts of nature, head and shoulders he positioned above the contrasting crowd, not in corporeal prominence, for he was only a little chap, but in correct degree of an artist. Among the whole host of superstars, the crawler, the fallen in position; among the small characters projected by hysterics of media hype to podiums upon which they positioned unpleasantly composed, Charlie roved and rambled the city, the best-known and the lonesome and lost man on the earth.

His rags to riches story, his adoration for cinema, his obsession to accomplish, his toil and tussle to triumph, his poignant voyage, his failings and their obscurity by his forte, all such features and facets have been discovered in this writer\'s quest for material relevant to this book. The pictographic compilation augments each subject which is fun to read and at the same time offers scope for a serious and stern study. The collection of typical portraits, snapshots of uncommon audio-visual works, and familiar metaphors technically enhanced, compose the work more alluring and exclusive." (jacket)