The Complete Jarrett - Guy Jarrett/Jim Steinmeyer
Available from: UK (£50)/USA ($65)
The Description
"In 1981, Jim Steinmeyer produced Jarrett, but that was only part of the story... The Complete Jarrett is a spectacular new edition of the infamous Jarrett Magic, the controversial 1936 text on stage illusions. Guy Jarrett had constructed illusions for Thurston, for leading Broadway shows, sideshows and world's fairs. He thought a lot of magic could be better and put his secrets and philosophies in his own hand-printed text, and he changed magic forever. The secrets were astonishing, the stories were insightful, and the book became famous as one of the best reads in magic-alternately hilarious, biting and just plain honest. For many decades the book was a highly-sought rarity. The Complete Jarrett is a completely new edition, reproducing every page of Jarrett's original work with over 250 photos and drawings, including many new diagrams for this edition. For the first time, Jim Steinmeyer has included newly discovered historical information on Jarrett, his Broadway shows, feature illusions and the secrets of his remarkable magic. It's a beautiful publication and an important, fascinating look at the art.
The Complete Jarrett is a post-graduate course in magic, taught by magic's one-of-a-kind genius, Guy Jarrett.
Hardbound, 288 Pages with Silver Stamped Cover"
The Review
Well - where to start?! It's a book which doesn't make for easy reviewing, simply because it's not one of those books with effects many will perform. Sure, there are a couple of close-up items, but really this is a book you buy because it contains a collection of ingenious and hugely innovative stage magic, by one of the field's legends: Guy Jarrett.
The book itself is beautiful, and a lot larger than I expected it to be: the pages are approx. 27cm wide and 21cm high, and there's 288 of them.
It begins and ends with a biography of Jarrett as well as excerpts from his other writing; sandwiched in between them is the bulk of the book: a reprint of the original Jarrett book occupies half of each page, with Steinemeyer's annotations running alongside them, their purpose being to clarify and correct Jarrett's explanations, as well as to provide more detail on the methods and look into the history of the effects. There are many additional illustrations to supplement Jarrett's own, and the annotations often run into several pages - this is not a book lacking in detail!
Given that it's Steinmeyer doing the annotating, it should go without saying that they're expertly written and oozing with insight.
The effects themselves? Consider a cabinet barely large enough to hold six people - and imagine producing from that cabinet twenty-one. Conventional methodology might have the additional people loaded into the cabinet, passing up through a trap which was masked in one way or another; not so with Jarrett, whose method is so simple yet so brilliant and counter-intuitive you can't help but laugh in amazement - and the effect is that much more baffling for it, and so it is for the twenty-five-or-so other effects.
Of course I recommend this book for anyone with an interest in stage magic; but for the close-uppers as well there is much of value here. Jarrett understood his audiences, and there is much to be taken away from the presentations he put to his material. Furthermore every effect is an exercise in lateral thinking, a nudge away from the standard, satisfactory methods towards ones just as practical but so much more solid - an inspiration for anybody who creates close-up magic. Finally for anyone interested in the history of magic this is a fascinating read, especially for Jarrett's attitudes towards some of the more revered entertainers of his time...
I don't want to say too much about the book, suffice to say that it's brilliant - it's a treasure which you will have much fun unearthing yourself.
10/10 - Highly Recommended!
