The contradictions of colonialism permeate a story that, like the best historical fiction, envelops you in its world. Ghosh...
Solid, old-fashioned historical fiction that careens through the century, embracing a cast of characters whose lives unfold so gracefully that before you know it you’ve also witnessed the tragic tale of modern Burma, a country destroyed by colonialism and its aftermath.
The Indian-born Ghosh (The Calcutta Chromosome, 1997, etc.) is too subtle a writer to simply rage against Empire, which, as the British constantly remind everyone here, brings modernity to the subcontinent. But this lyrical and focused narrative finds its origins in a simpler time: an 11-year-old Indian boy in Mandalay first glimpses a young beauty, a servant in the palace of the Burmese king. A resilient and determined orphan, Rajkumar apprentices himself to a wise and friendly Asian teak dealer, who helps him develop the fortune that will reunite Rajkumar with his beloved Dolly, who follows the Royal Family into exile in India after the 1885 British invasion. History plays out against this grand passion, rather than the other way around: Rajkumar grows wealthy from his investments in Malaysian rubber during WWI; Dolly’s friend Uma becomes a leader in the radical Indian Independence Union; the Burmese riot against the Indians, complicating the various intermarriages; and, most importantly, WWII pits everyone against the invading Japanese, and, later, family against family, when the mutinous Indians fight the British loyalists. The novel is no history lesson, though, since Ghosh integrates his research with immense skill, making real events have consequences for his invented characters. And there is always the pulse of human life: the births and deaths, the loves and betrayals, the rises and falls—all spread over generations of Rajkumar’s family, and even connecting to the present state of affairs in Myanmar.
The contradictions of colonialism permeate a story that, like the best historical fiction, envelops you in its world. Ghosh seamlessly blends ideas about the power of the photographic image with unforgettable descriptions of nature—in a thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent epic that’s bound to win him a wide and grateful readership.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-50148-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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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