Portis's latest combines the same hard-boiled goofiness and swift storytelling that make his earlier books (Masters of Atlantis, 1985, etc.), so enjoyably original. This one's a sweaty intrigue, set south of the border, that toys with cosmic themes, only to reduce them to their deservedly comic size. The expatriate community living near the Yucatan includes all kinds of kooks, dypsos, and schemers. The only sane and stable gringo here seems to be the somewhat mysterious narrator, Jimmy Burns, a self-described "lugubrious bore" who fancies himself "the very picture of an American idler in Mexico." Though Jimmy's past as a looter of antiquities ("recovery work") continually catches up with him, he now survives on odd jobs and light hauling. But much like Travis McGee, he also salvages lives, especially the many good-hearted, empty-headed spiritual pilgrims who hope to find the mysteries of the universe revealed among the Mayan ruins. Burns's irregular friends include Louise and Rudy Kurle, two ufologists interested in discovering evidence of prehistoric space travel; Emmett, the often-married old-timer desperately seeking a cure for his physical ailments; Minim, a retired pro bowler who now writes sports poems; a few psycho vets; and Doc Flandin, a wealthy old Mayanist still at work on his masterpiece, a survey of Meso-American civilization. When a lot of New Age hippies as well as some nasty dopers start bumming through town, Burns gets wind of a secretive ceremony to be held at a remote ruin. Is it just more silly talk of harmonic convergence? Of a visit from the little people? Or is it to be a scene of sacrificial violence? Always on the look-out for US runaways, Burns spots one in the company of an evil ex-con who leads a bunch of Mansonesque crazies toward the ancient site. Burns's arrival down river not only spoils the wacky celebration, but he also saves a few lives in a notvery-funny bloodbath. He even solves the mystery of the sudden surge of local madness, all of it traceable to a few articles in an obscure UFO bulletin. The double-talk of the cultists is expertly filtered through Portis's lean and muscular prose, and the plot's as tight as a blood-swollen tick. All in all, totally boss fiction.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1991
ISBN: 671-72457-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
SEEN & HEARD
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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