Devilishly sharp social commentary.
An eccentric outsider is baffled by contemporary Manhattan in this engrossing second novel by Pelzman (Troika, 2014).
Robert Walser is a struggling writer whose genteel ways suit a bygone age. He lives on the Upper West Side, supported by a dwindling inheritance, clinging to the hope that his work will be published. Besides his agent, Belinda St. Clair, “a sour but persistent old woman,” Walser has only one other important contact—Rose—a woman with whom he has exchanged letters but never met. The novel’s opening finds the protagonist in high spirits, having received two important messages—the first from Belinda informing him that his short story is being considered by a literary journal, the second from Rose, announcing her imminent arrival in New York. The storyline follows Walser on his walk from his 72nd Street apartment to the Port Authority, where Rose will alight a bus from Philadelphia. Sadly, Rose fails to show, and Walser’s heart sinks as he realizes that he must continue to navigate the unforgiving city alone. Meanwhile, he discovers that a sculpture is being erected near his apartment that embodies all he despises about contemporary city life. Pelzman’s second novel brims with intrigue. Does the enigmatic Rose exist? What is the significance of the sculpture titled #dunamisto? Pelzman’s reveal is tantalizing and richly detailed. Many of the scenes that define Walser’s character will live on in the memory. One such is when he rides the subway and confronts a young man for failing to give up his seat to the elderly: “I await a humane response, but instead he shrugs his shoulders, returns the headphones to his ears and taps away at the screen of his phone as if he exists on a planet of one.” Walser’s old-fashioned set of values—which may appear priggish but are founded on human decency—cause him to be looked upon as potentially insane. This is acutely observant, timely writing that confronts the ever heightening sense of disconnection and self-absorption extant in city life. A minor criticism: The narrative could be distilled from novel length into an even more intense short story. Walser’s jury duty, for instance; although amusing, it feels somewhat extraneous. Still, this is another entrancing, deeply memorable offering from Pelzman.
Devilishly sharp social commentary.Pub Date: July 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73325-853-1
Page Count: 201
Publisher: Jackson Heights Press
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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