Djerassi, a Stanford chemistry professor and the man who developed the first oral contraceptive, expressed his fascination with scientists' hunger for recognition in his first two novels (The Bourbaki Gambit, 1994; Cantor's Dilemma, 1989). His hero this time is not so different: a Pulitzer-winning novelist who so longs to know how he'll be ranked among the greats that he fakes his own death to read his obituaries. The problem with being an artist, Stephen Marx likes to say, is that there's no hierarchical structure within which one can gauge one's success or lack thereof. Working in isolation, answerable only to a faceless and generally silent public, a serious writer can count how many copies of his books sell, but how can he be sure that his work is good enough to survive through the ages? So caught up with this question is Marx (despite his Pulitzer), and so apathetic about the way his personal life is dragging along, that he arranges to fake his own death by drowning so that he can read the posthumous summations. Marx's ruse works, and he flees undetected to an anonymous life in San Francisco—but then, of course, complications ensue. First, Noah Berg, Marx's cruelest but most engaged critic, drops all plans for a book about Marx when he falls in love with Marx's ``widow,'' Miriam. Then a beautiful but nosy Columbia Journalism School student acting on a hunch hunts Marx down and threatens to expose him unless he helps her write her own biography of the author. Amidst all this turmoil, Marx is never really able to pin down his true worth as a writer- -but as the burden of his reputation is lifted, he finds himself freed to create in new and exciting ways, ensuring a slew of brilliant if anonymous novels to come. Charming characters and clever prose, though few readers are likely to care about the issue of peer review as much as Djerassi evidently does.
Pub Date: Aug. 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-8203-1835-3
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Univ. of Georgia
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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