The prolific (over 50 books) and protean Burgess (1917-93), author of such amazingly varied fictions as Enderby (1967), Napoleon Symphony (1974), and A Dead Man in Deptford (1995), left this rambunctious "novel in verse" completed at his death. Borrowing both Byron's ottava rima and the nine-line stanza Spenser employed in The Faerie Queen (and throwing in a few sonnets for good measure), Burgess's anonymous narrator celebrates and regrets the gluttonous life indulged by his Falstaffian subject—an Irish Don Juan if there ever was one. The eponymous Michael Byrne achieves fame as artist, composer, and cocksman as he beds willing women and fathers disgruntled children, surviving political and erotic dangers in Hitler's Germany before disappearing into the Far East, and legend. The "fruits of his insemination" pursue their own dreams and flee their own demons (one is a priest, another author apocalyptic reunion with their Aged (and Unregenerate) Parent. Punk terrorists and Muslim fanatics bent on dishonoring Dante Alighieri also join in this word-drunk romp, which is distinguished by literally dozens of ingeniously brilliant comic rhymes: SS-men boozily strutting their stuff express "the joy of being drunk and Aryan./Though Hitler was a teetotalitarian," and an enlightened defense of the maligned Albert Einstein becomes "How the hell has his Jewishness impaired/The formula E=Mc2?" It isn't easy to stop quoting. Surely, somewhere Byron is rolling over in his grave. Laughing. It's heartening to learn from this wonder-filled book that, right up to the end of his life, the invaluable Burgess continued to enjoy writing as few writers have ever done. This is a swan song like no other, and one of the most delightful books of the decade.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7867-0456-X
Page Count: 160
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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