Barrett’s impeccably researched and stunningly written tale of a star-crossed Arctic voyage—a logical successor to such earlier fiction as The Forms of Water (1993) and the National Book Award—winning Ship Fever—is, simply, one of the best novels of the decade. In a flexible, lucid prose that effortlessly communicates detailed information about navigation, natural history, and several related disciplines, Barrett tells the increasingly moving story of naturalist Erasmus Darwin Wells’s ordeals: First, when he’s on an 1855 expedition in search of explorer Sir John Franklin’s lost crew, an expedition led by Erasmus’s rash, ego-driven future brother-in-law, Zechariah Voorhees; and second, when Erasmus’s —desertion— of their ship (the Narwhal) and the presumed death of the missing —Zeke— poisons his reunion with his bereaved sister Lavinia and deepens his own fear that his life amounts to —a history of failure.— The narrative of the Narwhal’s exhausting, repetitive odyssey is artfully varied by Barrett’s sympathetic concentration on Erasmus’s mixture of stoic dutifulness and excruciating self-doubt, and by her vivid portrayals of such secondary characters as ship’s cook Ned Kynd (a survivor of Ireland’s Potato Famine), its surgeon (and Erasmus’s revered soulmate) Jan Boerhaave, Lavinia’s paid —companion— Alexandra Coleman (instrumental in Erasmus’s eventual recall to life), and the —Arctic Highlanders,— whose inability to endure —civilization— rewrites all the explorers— and scientists— theories. Zeke himself—a megalomaniac with striking resemblances to Melville’s Ahab—is the fulcrum on which Barrett springs a dazzling surprise that gives her disturbing climactic pages an almost symphonic richness. The intellectual range exhibited by this magnificent novel places its author in the rarefied company of great contemporary encyclopedic writers like Pynchon, Gaddis, and Harry Mulisch. One yearns for Barrett to treat in such exemplary detail the story of Jemmy Button, the Tierra del Fuegan Indian returned to London after Darwin’s voyage on the H.M.S.Beagle. You feel she could do full justice to it, or indeed whatever subject she chooses. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-393-04632-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Written with courage and compassion, this debut novel by Okparanta (Happiness, Like Water, 2013) stunningly captures a young...
In 1968, during the second year of the war between Biafra and Nigeria, 11-year-old Ijeoma is sent away from her home in Ojoto for safety by her mother, Adaora.
Ijeoma’s father, Uzo, is dead, destroyed in a bombing raid that nearly decimated their village, and her mother is quickly unraveling, unable to cope with the ongoing war and famine. But Adaora’s love for her daughter is limitless; when Ijeoma was born early, for example, Adaora gave herself headaches learning about nutrition to make sure her baby grew healthy. Okparanta is masterful at articulating the pressures living through endless violence has on each of her characters' psyches; Adaora crumbles under the harshness of the ongoing war. Her plan is to go to her parents’ house in Aba and see if things are better there while Ijeoma stays with friends in Nnewi; she'll send for the girl to join her when it's safe. But Ijeoma feels this separation is prompted less by necessity than by the fact that Adaora now finds her daughter an impossible burden. Alone in Nnewi, Ijeoma falls in love with another displaced girl, Amina. But when their relationship is discovered, Ijeoma is sent back to her mother, who is determined to teach Ijeoma that two girls can't be romantically involved. In the years following, Ijeoma must reconcile her feelings toward women with the pressure to marry a man and be accepted in a country that makes being gay punishable by death. In language both sparse and lyrical, Okparanta manages to articulate a child's wide-eyed understanding of the breakdown of the world around her. We see, too, a detailed rebuilding of that world along with Ijeoma's maturity into womanhood. Here is writing rich in the beautiful intimacies of people who love each other—and wise about the importance of holding onto those precious connections in a world that is, more often than not, dangerous and cold.
Written with courage and compassion, this debut novel by Okparanta (Happiness, Like Water, 2013) stunningly captures a young girl’s coming of age against the backdrop of a nation at war.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-00344-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers...
Exploring humankind's place in the universe and the nature of humanity, many of the stories in this stellar collection focus on how technological advances can impact humanity’s evolutionary journey.
Chiang's (Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002) second collection begins with an instant classic, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 2008. A time-travel fantasy set largely in ancient Baghdad, the story follows fabric merchant Fuwaad ibn Abbas after he meets an alchemist who has crafted what is essentially a time portal. After hearing life-changing stories about others who have used the portal, he decides to go back in time to try to right a terrible wrong—and realizes, too late, that nothing can erase the past. Other standout selections include “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a story about a software tester who, over the course of a decade, struggles to keep a sentient digital entity alive; “The Great Silence,” which brilliantly questions the theory that humankind is the only intelligent race in the universe; and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny,” which chronicles the consequences of machines raising human children. But arguably the most profound story is "Exhalation" (which won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), a heart-rending message and warning from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Although the being theorizes that all life will die when the universes reach “equilibrium,” its parting advice will resonate with everyone: “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.”
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers in a big way.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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