A highly pleasant collection of episodes set in a vanished Boston.
A debut volume of short stories evokes Boston in the 1980s.
Narrated by a Frenchman who—partly due to his outsider status—becomes a keen observer of Boston’s people and rhythms, the tales in this collection take a closer look at some of the daily happenings there that might otherwise be ignored. In one, he spends a winter evening people-watching through the window of the Dolce Momento Café, commenting on the acquaintances he sees hurry by. In another, he goes to Faneuil Hall to judge an ice sculpture competition—the works are all in the form of the Statue of Liberty—with his personal assistant and her 5-year-old son in tow. In a third, he visits Lowell, Massachusetts, during a yearlong celebration of the city’s favorite son, Jack Kerouac. “He could not understand why I liked Lowell,” writes Briottet of a friend who often worked in the city. “I told him that Lowell was one of a small number of cities that have a mystery—a hidden sense about them that is not apparent right away—and that you are drawn to them precisely for that reason.” Such incidental writings—more travelogue than literary fiction—make up the bulk of the book, originally in French. The author’s prose, as rendered by debut translator Boudrot, is leisurely and light: “It was easy for me to spot the people from Beacon Hill because they had certain mannerisms: they always walked at a certain pace, and dressed in a certain manner. They lived in the neighborhood, and the streets were familiar to them: strolling would mean they were not from Beacon Hill.” With its color and observations of class and atmosphere, the volume almost feels as though it were set in a time longer ago than the ’80s. The vignettes aren’t quite insightful or compelling enough to interest readers who don’t already have some attachment to Boston, but those who do will likely enjoy this low-stakes book featuring the narrator’s commentary and memories. Briottet achieves a magic that only visitors from another culture are usually capable of: He takes the familiar and, through his unjaded perspective, makes it seem exotic and remarkable.
A highly pleasant collection of episodes set in a vanished Boston.Pub Date: July 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-941416-21-1
Page Count: 146
Publisher: P.R.A. Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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