The translators’ bold approach to their task overshadows the novel itself.
Two children wander through the forest in this fairy tale and manifesto.
In a Camp deep inside a forest, there is a Doctor who trains children to lose their native languages and to speak “correctly. After all,” the Doctor thinks, “speaking correctly means that you think correctly. And live correctly.” Alicia and Avi, sister and brother, are at the Camp until their father frees them—not long after, they’re separated from him and wander through the forest, Hansel and Gretel–style, on their own. Bacharevič’s novel blends the magic and darkness of a fairy tale with what is implicitly a manifesto on language and national identity. The Doctor’s “pure” language is Russian, while what Alicia’s father wants her to speak—proudly and unadulterated—is Belarusian. Bacharevič, a Belarusian writer (and former musician), wrote the novel in a blend of Russian and Belarusian, which are about as mutually intelligible as English is to, say, Scots. That apparently informed the translators’ decision to render the Russian portions of the book into English and the Belarusian portions into—yes—Scots. So when Avi talks to Alicia, he says things like, “Ah’m wunnerin whare we are?…If Faither waur tae phone us the noo, whit wad we tell tae him?” This was a bold decision on the part of the translators, and an intrusive one—so intrusive, in fact, it’s difficult to assess the novel on its own. It’s also a decision that seems in part to have missed the point—that every language has its own subtleties, nuances, and flavors inseparable from a distinct, and utterly individual, national identity. Because they speak in Scots, Alicia and Avi seem, unsurprisingly, distinctly Scottish. But they aren’t meant to be in Scotland; they are of course in Belarus. In itself, the rendering into Scots is beautiful, and there is a case to be made that the translators’ task was an impossible one. Still, the result doesn’t quite cohere. In the original, Bacharevič might very well be brilliant—but rendering his work into English and Scots draws a false equivalence among all the languages involved.
The translators’ bold approach to their task overshadows the novel itself.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8112-3196-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Inspired by disclosures of a real-life Florida reform school’s long-standing corruption and abusive practices, Whitehead’s...
The acclaimed author of The Underground Railroad (2016) follows up with a leaner, meaner saga of Deep South captivity set in the mid-20th century and fraught with horrors more chilling for being based on true-life atrocities.
Elwood Curtis is a law-abiding, teenage paragon of rectitude, an avid reader of encyclopedias and after-school worker diligently overcoming hardships that come from being abandoned by his parents and growing up black and poor in segregated Tallahassee, Florida. It’s the early 1960s, and Elwood can feel changes coming every time he listens to an LP of his hero Martin Luther King Jr. sermonizing about breaking down racial barriers. But while hitchhiking to his first day of classes at a nearby black college, Elwood accepts a ride in what turns out to be a stolen car and is sentenced to the Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory that looks somewhat like the campus he’d almost attended but turns out to be a monstrously racist institution whose students, white and black alike, are brutally beaten, sexually abused, and used by the school’s two-faced officials to steal food and supplies. At first, Elwood thinks he can work his way past the arbitrary punishments and sadistic treatment (“I am stuck here, but I’ll make the best of it…and I’ll make it brief”). He befriends another black inmate, a street-wise kid he knows only as Turner, who has a different take on withstanding Nickel: “The key to in here is the same as surviving out there—you got to see how people act, and then you got to figure out how to get around them like an obstacle course.” And if you defy them, Turner warns, you’ll get taken “out back” and are never seen or heard from again. Both Elwood’s idealism and Turner’s cynicism entwine into an alliance that compels drastic action—and a shared destiny. There's something a tad more melodramatic in this book's conception (and resolution) than one expects from Whitehead, giving it a drugstore-paperback glossiness that enhances its blunt-edged impact.
Inspired by disclosures of a real-life Florida reform school’s long-standing corruption and abusive practices, Whitehead’s novel displays its author’s facility with violent imagery and his skill at weaving narrative strands into an ingenious if disquieting whole.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-53707-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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