Readers who thrive on satire, allusion, irreverence, puns and all-around nonsense rolled into a well-told tale with serious...
Ostensibly translated from the original fly text by debut author Sirtup, this four-volume book is a satiric pun fest featuring flies as the heroes.
Who knew? Flies are not only sentient but literate and have been for eons. Fecal the Fly comes from royalty. His grandfather, the Great Fly, is a randy oaf and one of the rulers of Flyland. His father, Imago, disappeared after the assassination of Great-Grandfather Vloid Da Kine and Mother Fecaletta. Imago now roams the earth as a fly holy man known as Phat the Bodi. Against an absurd backdrop replete with Machiavellian intrigue, murder and sex, Fecal, who doubts the existence of God (Gad), leaves home to find his father and himself. This is an astounding book. At first blush, it’s astonishing that anyone would go to such lengths—more than 600 pages filled with illustrations; glossaries; diagrams; scientific, cultural and literary allusions; an epilogue, afterword, and 100 quatrains comprising a second book of fly wisdom—to write a purposefully goofy story about insects. Once readers get beyond reading about excrement-eating, vomit-loving vermin who defecate in the food of people (known as monsters), however, they begin to appreciate this brilliantly executed tale. Sirtup, who manages a Flyland website (http://www.flyland.net/), remarkably succeeds in making these creatures genuine, sympathetic personalities. As Fecal’s journey of discovery proceeds, he faces physical and moral challenges worthy of Hercules. Pursued by the Four Horseflies of the Apocalypse (hit men sent by his family’s enemies), Fecal manages to trick them into a spider’s web, escaping himself through a small tear. He also falls in love, an act abhorrent to flies. Or, in the words of the fly Quatrains, “There is no need for love in perfect nature or in the behavior of a fly” and “Do not unto others / give nothing / receive nothing / and leave nothing behind.” When Fecal finds Imago, there’s much philosophizing in a place called the Reincarnation Factory, which would spoil the fun to describe here.
Readers who thrive on satire, allusion, irreverence, puns and all-around nonsense rolled into a well-told tale with serious underpinnings will relish this sturdy tome.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1467507646
Page Count: 642
Publisher: Mountain Top Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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