A thoughtfully crafted fable for fans of spiritual awakenings and the romance of traditional peoples.
The spiritual tale of a young Native American from the days before the Spanish arrived in California.
Set in the warm mists of a bygone Southern California, this taut spiritual awakening-cum-bildungsroman chronicles the metaphysical and social awakening of a young man named Tacu. Introduced in media res, we learn through well-wrought and subtle exposition that Tacu is without a father, that his mother is the spiritual leader of their village and that his wise uncle Takoda has returned to initiate the young man into the realm of spiritual growth and mystery. The structure of the tale is quite simple—Tacu meditates according to his uncle’s instructions, struggles to achieve stillness but eventually learns heightened awareness of his environment and his spiritual dimensions. This will be well-worn territory for readers of Castaneda, fans of native wisdom narratives and even addicts of martial arts films, but Lamont’s very particular setting and honed, terse prose make the most of this slight volume. Without resorting to anachronistic vocabulary, Lamont conjures imagery that explains Takoda’s charisma without any undue intrusions from Tacu on the narrator’s voice: “Takoda’s dark form flickered as though he were made of smoke and orange firelight.” This sophisticated free indirect discourse is often mismanaged even by mass-market authors, and there is hardly a word out of place throughout Tacu’s narrative. The story functions much better as a fable than a novella proper, and so readers looking for a developed mythos or a panoramic tapestry of Tongvan or more general Native American culture should not expect to find that here. The narrative is an exercise in time-honored formula, so what is most commendable is the precision and unpretentiousness of the prose while still managing to invoke the intense quality of Tacu’s visionary quest and moving nature of his movement.
A thoughtfully crafted fable for fans of spiritual awakenings and the romance of traditional peoples.Pub Date: June 30, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983500704
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Cloud River
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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