A strange, gawky dance between the past and the present, and between mundanity and insanity.
Two Irish brothers compete bitterly for the affections of a beautiful eco-terrorist.
Crude, self-entitled petty criminal Liam Caffrey needs a woman to complete his image of himself as a success. He sets his sights on Nuala Macree, who returned from Spain to their hometown of Lochard as a single mom to help an activist group save the town’s lake from a French water conglomerate. Liam’s socially naïve, intellectual brother Mel, whose recent spiritual crisis has led him to leave the monastery for home, has also latched on to Nuala as the radiant goddess who will fill the space that God has left. The brothers’ ineffective desperation, increasingly insane thoughts and bizarre behaviors in pursuit of Nuala, as well as the extreme antagonism they have toward each other, are described from inside their emotional spaces, caricatures standing in stark relief to Nuala’s graceful, noncommittal responses. Parkinson provides strange juxtapositions in this debut novel. There’s a voice and depiction of a traditional small town, as well as a working-class Irish life, that could easily be mistaken for something written in the 19th century, but certain details reveal a modern setting, like terrorism that consists of destroying electronic files or a party band that plays "Tainted Love." By the climax of the book, Liam’s move to impress Nuala with an open house party in his newly remodeled home leads to a surreal physical confrontation between the brothers, and the focus on the psychology of the obsessed pair suddenly expands into a broad, chaotic explosion of the whole small town’s anger and erotic energy in which even the lake itself gets a voice. The writing is overall a bit stilted and ungraceful, as if it is fighting with itself about whether it is philosophy or theater, pathos or satire. But in a way, this awkwardness suits the subject matter, and it’s unclear if this is literary defect or just unusual styling.
A strange, gawky dance between the past and the present, and between mundanity and insanity.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983859611
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Cool Root Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2012
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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