Da Vinci Code fans will be mildly intrigued.
A globe-trotting, perspective-shifting thriller filled with conspiracy theories and secret societies.
When the novel opens, the daughter of noted neurosurgeon Maurice Bergman is in a coma: She was poisoned at an archaeological dig site near Sidon, Lebanon, where Joseph, the father of Jesus, purportedly rests. Her father must take her to Rome in order to cure her. Once there, she’s given a drug that magically wakes her, and she’s able to explain to her father what occurred: She stumbled on the bones of St. Joseph, and an angel appeared to her in the guise of her dead mother to give her some kind of a fertility doll. Elsewhere, two men who were hired to fetch the statue of the Virgin are now explaining themselves not to the priest who hired them, but to a third party; the exact mechanics of their criminal endeavors remain murky throughout the novel. Also involved are an Austrian professor of Egyptian antiquities named Ernst Von Biden and an American investigative reporter, Marvin Challet, who seem to be representing the interests of the Catholic Church. Narrative focus switches between these groups from chapter to chapter, further complicating an already bewildering story. Inconsistencies and questions abound, even beside the credulity-straining Gnostic plot. For example, if this girl is so ill, why is she in her father’s house and not in the hospital? Even the best neurosurgeons don’t have access to the necessary level of machinery and medication at home. Furthermore, it’s difficult to swallow that a father fearing for his daughter’s life would automatically take the word of a stranger who calls to inform him about his daughter’s poisoning and who further insists that the treatment for this condition is available only in Rome. Even if that were true, logic dictates that it’s much easier to send medication than to bring a girl in a coma overseas. Indeed, none of the medical aspects of the novel can be looked at too closely. Punctuation errors, usually involving commas, pop up on nearly every page, as does an overreliance on ellipses to indicate speech patterns. Frequently, clunky phrasing and poor diction submerge the narrative—i.e., “laughed belly laughs.” The author also often ignores that old standby of writerly advice: Show, don’t tell. Sometimes, even the dialogue is painfully expository: “You must be weary having just arrived from Lebanon,” a man helpfully explains to his guests.
Da Vinci Code fans will be mildly intrigued.Pub Date: July 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-1451518559
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
That Rewak (The Orphan Bear, 2014, etc.) is a professor, a university chancellor, and a monk only makes the fact that he is also an accomplished poet more impressive.
It is difficult to talk about Jesuit poetry without invoking Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was a monk, a spiritual seeker, and a poet responsible for some of the most moving, challenging English verse of the last two centuries. So it’s entirely fitting that Rewak—himself a Jesuit—calls out to his forebear in his new collection. “A New Task” is written in Hopkins’ memory, and in it, Rewak asks the poet, “Do you see, finally, after the dimness / that shadowed your black-robed walks / down lanes of half-opened eyes, / all the sentences left to be completed? / Is your pen busy with new, full-blown / wonders—stanzas that startle the saints?” Rewak’s own verse may not startle any saints, but it’s sure to please almost anyone else. But if Hopkins’ language is an ancient, gnarled oak, Rewak’s is a young birch, and his lines are smooth, white, and unbroken. Often flowing and conversational, his works are conceptually and emotionally ambitious but eminently readable. Take the humble, pristine “Rose”: “This little rose / is the best thing / I ever grew for you / on this small planet / you can take the dinosaurs / and mushrooms, the great / Himalayas, full of grandeur / (as an indication of My size) / but this thing I hold....” Here, the poet’s direct address and his coyly simple language remind us of the beauty of small things—even things so frequently praised as that red flower. Like Hopkins before him, Rewak addresses God less often than the beautiful, sublime world. But when he does turn his attention to religious matters, it’s with wit and insight. Here is “Verdict,” which is presumably about the trial of God: “They’ve put You on trial / I’m told: / it was whispered to me / proceedings are held tight / in a shuttered room… / but I notice the sun / still shines / because at heart You’re generous / and inclined to overlook petulance.” Would that all poets could write with such tact and humor.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5390-5255-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.
Sharma (America Tattwamasi, 2016) explores American freedom in this collection of poetry.
In his previous book, the poet observed America through the lens of the Hindu Upanishads, with an emphasis on religion, politics, and universal spirituality. This second collection of more than 200 poems is “the continuation of the same vision, message, and mission,” he reveals early on. As a whole, it showcases an unswerving belief in American ideals; indeed, Sharma describes America, in his introduction, as representing “the supreme philosophy of freedom and liberty.” However, he also states that his lengthy, 52-page title poem is a lyrical attempt at “reinvigorating this great country” in the face of what he perceives as current “weakness and complacency.” Still, the poem portrays the nation as a wellspring of benevolent energy. Speaking directly to America itself, the narrator offers absurd exaggeration: “You are the one on whom is pinned the advancement of human / civilization, with all its sacredness intact.” He then turns a critical gaze toward people in politics, asking, “Why have our politicians relegated themselves to third world / demagogues? / Why are they twisting our sacred documents to suit their knavish / dispositions?” The result is a fervent cri de coeur that asks the amorphous American spirit to “arise and illumine the eyes of humanity,” as “It is time to bludgeon the dark that is trying to decapitate truth and / veracity.” Some readers may interpret these lines as revolutionary, aggressively nationalistic, or even colonialist in tenor, with their inference that everything that isn’t America is in darkness, waiting to be illuminated or crushed. In a later poem, the narrator declares, “The uncompromising advocate / Of racial harmony and tolerance, / O America, / I salute thee!” Sharma’s writing echoes the nigh-biblical, overspilling grandiosity of Walt Whitman’s literary style. However, there’s also a hint of zealotry here, and some readers, including those engaged in campaigning for racial equality in the United States, will likely balk at this collection’s assumptions of harmony and tolerance.
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.Pub Date: July 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-5150-7
Page Count: 358
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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