MAG-MARJORIE and WON OVER

Name: MAG-MARJORIE and WON OVER
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
ISBN: 0-9655309-4-9

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

Though the tales are dated and at a glance have little import for the modern reader, Gilman’s sharp characters and her...

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Two didactic, at times sentimental novels (first serialized in Gilman’s magazine, The Forerunner) still prove fascinating in their explications of gender in turn-of-the-century New England.

A preeminent pioneer of contemporary feminism, tackling in her nonfiction the repressive economic and domestic life of women, Gilman (1860-1935) didn’t stray far at all in her fiction. Written only a few years before the publication of her significant Herland, both Mag-Marjorie and Won Over (1912 and 1913) present women confronted with the challenge of independence in a world of petticoats and social calls. Though the plot of the first is conventionally melodramatic, the solution to its “problem” is pure Gilman. Mag, a 16-year-old maid at her aunt’s inn, falls for Dr. Armstrong, becomes pregnant, and is tossed aside by the misogynistic Lothario. Luckily for Mag, the exceptional Mary Yale is visiting the inn and saves the girl: “He’s not going to be ruined by this summer’s sins – why should you?” The wealthy, unmarried older woman makes plans for Mag’s next ten years – a Henrietta Higgins transforming the country girl into an educated European surgeon. Won Over is more contemporary in its relevance and far more compelling. Stella Widfield, a happily married mother, discovers the emptiness of her life when her sons go off to boarding school. In a nice turn of paranoia à la “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Stella becomes obsessed with her husband’s safety until she discovers a world outside the stifling environs of her Manhattan apartment. Rediscovering her love of writing (thanks to another well-to-do lady and her broader circle of Socialist bohemians), Stella also discovers herself and in turn reignites her faltering marriage by changing from a frothing handmaid into an individual whom her husband can respect.

Though the tales are dated and at a glance have little import for the modern reader, Gilman’s sharp characters and her insights into gender traps provide enough appeal to interest those outside academic circles.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-9655309-4-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.