Cookson's hyperventilating, unbuttoned tales of (usually period) Tyneside passion ricocheting among the social classes in (generally) northern England (The Year of the Virgins, 1995, etc.) were good fun. But here the Cookson formulaic cast of characters—a villain vile, a noble lover, nice girls, and one completely mad shrew—are simply tiresome. The kind-souled kingpin now is bachelor doctor John Falconer, who has just bought into a practice near the estate of Pine Hurst, owned by sly Simon Steel, father of four daughters: lovely Helen, pretty Marion, bouncy childlike Rosie, and Beatrice the horrid. Dr. John is enthralled by Helen, but she and Marion are off to marry; even Rosie is engaged—although later Beatrice will end that, since she wants company in her beloved Pine Hurst, which she plans to save at all costs. Father Simon, you see, has been fatally beaned by a tree, and after his death all his bad deeds are aired: whoring and gambling and drinking. Beatrice is prepared to do battle to preserve her beloved house, now deeply in debt. She glowers, harangues, schemes, manipulates her sisters, and eats chocolates. But there's a hiatus from meanness when she unaccountably mellows and Dr. John, high on wine, unaccountably proposes—but, oh, what a mistake. Beatrice is insatiable in bed (to the hardworking doctor's dismay) and fairly eerie out of it. She not only nips in the bud a Rosie romance, but has been seen to pull a gun on innocent gypsies. By the close, Beatrice is fully bananas, and while true lovers find one another (Helen's fine husband conveniently contracts TB), Beatrice's virtuosi assaults—brick- throwing, flying tackles—lead to a time-honored immolation scene, Mrs. Danversstyle. The dialogue here splatters instead of popping; and there's a plenitude of ``shut up's!'' and other less than inventive up-front sentiments. A lesser effort, then, but never count out the Cookson- addicted. (Literary Guild alternate)
Pub Date: July 14, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-84241-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
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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