As this story’s heroine evolves from being merely boring to fundamentally loathsome, so too does her tale.
In her second novel (Glorie, 1998), a New York Times culture critic travels back to the 1920s to tell a story of uptown society and the downtown art scene.
Caroline Stephens is an heiress and socialite, married to a rich but unexciting man. She feels stifled by her privileged existence, and she has nothing but scorn for the “self-important businessmen” and “interchangeable wives” who inhabit her circle. Then she discovers art, and she becomes a collector and patron. When one of the artists she supports, Nick Leone, shows a portrait of her—quite naked and clearly aroused—at a gallery opening, she’s devastated by the scandal. What follows is much less interesting than one might expect. Part of the problem is Caroline herself: It’s not easy to feel much sympathy for a woman with enough power and money to destroy a man for sullying her reputation. And part of the problem is structural. James has chosen to have Caroline tell her story in the form of reminiscence. It’s inevitable that even the most tireless soliloquist will leave things out, but Caroline leaves out too much. She tells a great deal more than she shows. For instance, there are no scenes of Caroline’s education as a connoisseur; instead, there are lists of the painters and sculptors whose work she buys. The New York art world of the ’20s was a fascinating place, but you’d never know it from reading this novel. Of course, some of Caroline’s self-editing is strategic, particularly when it comes to her relationship with Nick. The author makes the question of Nick’s motivation the central mystery. Was it malice—as Caroline assumes—or something else altogether? Unfortunately, the reader has few clues from which to draw any solid conclusions. Instead, James slowly reveals that her protagonist is not just a spoiled, pretentious dilettante, but also a rather cold-hearted fraud. The true scandal here is not a racy painting, but Caroline’s monumental and destructive dishonesty.
As this story’s heroine evolves from being merely boring to fundamentally loathsome, so too does her tale.Pub Date: March 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34312-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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