A grotesque and puerile reimagining of German folklore.
A young man sets out with his disabled father to learn the truth about his heritage.
This is German novelist Kloeble’s third novel and his first to reach English readers via this translation by Kerner. The story’s protagonist is Albert, a 19-year-old who was raised in a Bavarian orphanage due to the mental incapacities of his much older father, Fred. When Albert discovers Fred is dying, he takes the old man and sets off on a fairy tale–like adventure to find his real mother. The story turns dark when Kloeble rockets readers back more than 100 years to explore the history of Albert’s family. Beginning in 1912, the author spins out the story of Josfer and Jasfe, two attractive siblings who can’t resist doing the wild thing and producing kids, not to mention that little hunting trip where Josfer kills his father to make things easier on the domestic front. This familial thread picks up again in 1924 with the story of Julius Habom, one of the siblings’ offspring, who has a similarly tumultuous relationship with his own sister. Albert’s family tree might be a bit arcane but it is patently clear Kloeble is trying to upend the conventions of fables and modern notions about parenthood. “Hansel and Gretel crumbs,” Albert says. “You follow them because you think they’re going to help you get out of the forest. And all they do is lead you deeper and deeper in. Till you can’t tell the day from the night anymore. Then, all of a sudden, the trail ends. ”In the end, it's hard to tell whether it’s the preposterous story or Kloeble’s sentimental style that derails the book. Nevertheless, all but the most adventurous readers are likely to be repelled by this whimsical coming-of-age story liberally seeded with incest and murder.
A grotesque and puerile reimagining of German folklore.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55597-729-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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