A glittering, accomplished, but rather callow tale of a latter-day Lost Generation.
How empty can the lives of young, rich, beautiful people be? Find out in this jaundiced novel of contemporary mores.
Hollow dissolution comes in East and West Coast flavors in these interleaved narratives of college-aged singletons with wealthy, indulgent parents. Part I takes place at a liberal arts college in New England where an incestuous tangle of undergrads–sarcastic would-be novelist Nicole, Byronic musician Dexter, upper-crust bastard Wes, little-girl-lost Lanie–pause occasionally in their random hookups and drug-fueled partying to mope, with sly literary allusions, about the meaninglessness of their random hookups and drug-fueled partying. Part II shifts the scene to Los Angeles, where a different but intersecting group of kids enjoy a long summer vacation. The lives of these well-heeled Californians are even shallower–the cocaine more copious, the couplings more transient, the life goals restricted to cosmetic surgery and a berth in the entertainment industry. As the title hints, the authors walk in the footsteps of the master of Consumer Realist sagas of post-Reagan gilded youth. Their characters inhabit a social universe defined by musical tastes and designer-brand accoutrements. The men are preening narcissists obsessed with their abs, the women desperate waifs who wispily remember an age of innocence before the sexual debaucheries of middle school, and everyone expresses an inarticulable unhappiness by quoting muzzy rock lyrics. Weiss and Wallace sketch this world with a polished prose style, a fine ear for dialogue and pop culture and a wicked satirical edge. Unfortunately, the story comes to seem as dazed, monotonous and lightweight as its interchangeable characters. The straight-A Cal-Tech physics major is as vapid as the aspiring Playboy bunny, and their Lohan-esque excesses seem correspondingly unserious. As the Sadies and Sarahs and Samanthas trudge blearily from one party and bed to the next, even their parents have trouble telling them apart. In the end it’s almost impossible to keep track of who’s snorting what and screwing whom or why–and harder still to care.
A glittering, accomplished, but rather callow tale of a latter-day Lost Generation.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4401-2073-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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