An expansive, immersive look at Edward II.
Zanghellini (The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority, 2015) imagines the personal life and loves of English King Edward II in this work of historical fiction.
In 1308, 12-year-old Queen Isabella of France comes to England to marry its king, Edward II. However, on the night of the wedding, Edward—a decade her senior—assures her that he won’t consummate the marriage until she’s an adult. Isabella then meets the king’s best friend, Sir Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall. The two men have a friendship that makes other nobles at the English court whisper. “My husband the King is always quite full of life, from what I can judge,” Isabella observes, “but never so much as when he’s with the Earl.” Edward met Piers, the dashing son of a Gascon banneret, when the former was only 15. He succeeded to the throne with Piers as his lover and closest adviser, although the relationship—and the power it grants Piers—draws the ire of Edward’s earls. They scheme to banish Piers, but when the king thwarts their wishes, they find a more permanent, and deadly, solution. In the aftermath of Piers’ murder, his memory—perhaps even his ghost—haunts Edward, who must find a way to rule a country that doesn’t understand him. Zanghellini writes in a deliberative, detailed prose style throughout that illuminates the historical record while also imbuing his characters with agency and urgency: “He didn’t try to explain to her that sinking to the bottom of the sea, clutching Piers to his heart, seemed far more desirable to him than any number of alternative fates likely to await them if Lancaster and the others had their way.” Although some readers may find the central relationship of the novel to be a bit too idealized, the author also creates a complex, engrossing character in Isabella, who serves to ground the narrative; her observations give readers a clear window into the life of an unusual medieval monarch. Overall, the book should please aficionados of historical fiction—particularly those who are interested in the things that history books usually leave out.
An expansive, immersive look at Edward II.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59021-696-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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