Earnest and literal, Piper’s heart is on his sleeve.
In his first volume of poetry, Piper covers a wide swath of emotional and philosophical territory, documenting his thoughts and feelings along the way.
Reading the book’s end passage, a quote from Charles Bukowski, readers immediately understand what they’re getting into: “If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.” Piper’s sporadic and textured imagery (“it’s the insides of your pupils that dilate next to me”) is not the only element that makes this book compelling. With this volume of rhyming poetry, it’s as though the author is operating a telescopic lens, zooming in and out from the sacred to the literal, capturing a range of human emotion and thought. As he explains in a brief introduction, “This book is a representation of what is for the reader to decide. People discern words for the meanings they want for themselves.” Piper asks the abstract “meaning of life and love and loss” questions, then closes in on the three-dimensional world to explore the more dissonant aspects of society and humanity, while criticizing things like television and war. With simple language applied to universal themes, the author is a romantic, creating verse that’s accessible to any reader. Still, the work never strays too far from the specifics of his personal experience and ideas. In “Obstacle,” he writes, “Our ancestors didn’t think about / Corporations / and / Cars / What were their dreams? / Were they as materialistic as ours?” In a piece titled “Throne,” he holds up a mirror before a self-righteous snob, yet ironically (showing the work’s complexity), the accuser’s voice comes off as equally self-righteous: “You act like / You’re better than everyone else / Chances are / You don’t even know yourself.” Who among us will have trouble relating? The readers’ sympathetic feelings will connect them with the meaning of these words and ultimately the poet.
Earnest and literal, Piper’s heart is on his sleeve.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2008
ISBN: 978-1440414466
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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
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
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