by Helga Ruebsamen & translated by Paul Vincent ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2000
A virtuosic interweaving of myth, history, and imagination.
We’ve seen a number of interesting novels from the Netherlands lately, but few have been better than this engrossing saga of a Dutch Jewish family’s experiences of personal upheaval in the East Indies and WWII upon returning to Holland.
Their story is told in retrospect by Louise “Lulu” Benda, whose memories extend back to her early childhood in an exotic “paradise” where “gods” are believed to prowl lush gardens and figures from Javanese mythology seem every bit as real as Lulu’s father Cees, a compassionate doctor, her mother Hélène, and (maternal) Aunt Margot, plus the playful, vaguely sinister Felix, Cees’s brother, and—as Lulu barely intuits—a threat to both “Aunty Margot’s” happiness and her parents’ marriage. The enigmatic Uncle Felix is one of several omens (such as the tale of the sorrowful Javanese Princess Dewi Kesuma) that influence and complicate Lulu’s gradual understanding of the forces that drive her family back to Europe (first to the comparative safety of The Hague), and to the numerous relatives whom she encounters (the most memorable being her authoritarian “Granny Mimi,” who has “banned a number of topics of conversation, such as war and someone called Hitla”). Ruebsamen uses Lulu’s initially inchoate consciousness beautifully, building up a complex contrast between the limpid, seductive “song” of her innocent years in the Indies and the abrasive “truth” of her unhappy maturing in the crucible of her war-torn mother country. The tale is further distinguished by vivid, patiently assembled characterizations of such striking figures as Lulu’s stoical, stubbornly decent and heroic father, her young “other Aunt” Tinka (a child of the Indies who cannot survive in the sluggish, destroyed atmosphere of Holland’s “Wetlands”), and the Bendas’ affable maidservant Aleida, a perverse maternal figure whose powerful sexuality both repels and fascinates the preadolescent Lulu.
A virtuosic interweaving of myth, history, and imagination.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-40261-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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