An intelligent and enjoyable cross-cultural adventure.
An Englishman on the run from assassins befriends a famed Japanese samurai in Dohmen’s historical tale set in the late 15th century.
In 1483, Simon Lang finds himself in unenviable circumstances: He’s a pilot aboard the Venetian ship Tigre, sailing off the western coast of Japan, and the crew is starving to the point that some have resorted to cannibalism. He fears their days are numbered. Off in the distance, they spot a ship and attack it in order to plunder its supplies, and in the process, Simon makes the acquaintance of Kojiro Takeda, a legendary samurai being held captive by an enemy clan. Amid the confusion of the attack, Kojiro frees himself, slaughters his captors, and joins the crew of the Tigre. Simon and his mates follow Kojiro home to his village on the Japanese island of Shikoku,and as they stay there for months to recuperate, they get drawn into a war that threatens Kojiro’s people. Later, Kojiro embarks with Simon back to England, where he feels compelled to seek revenge: King Edward’s imperialistic encroachments led to the death of Simon’s father in battle and the ignominious execution of his mother. As he’s being pursued by the king’s henchman, he becomes motivated not only by vengeance, but also a solidarity with fellow Lancastrians besieged by the king.
In a style that’s inventive and pleasantly humorous, debut author Dohmen explores the cultural divide not only between Japanese and European customs generally, but also between different interpretations of soldierly honor. Just as Simon is deeply moved by Kojiro’s combination of humility and dutifulness, Kojiro comes to appreciate the qualities of the “barbarian ghost warriors” he has come to know. The plot is generously stocked with action, and the author conveys it thrillingly; overall, the story speeds along at a nearly frenzied pace that compensates for its length of more than 350 pages.The author strives more for crackling entertainment than plausibility; for example, it’s astonishing, if not simply unbelievable, how quickly Simon learns to wield a katana well enough to successfully oppose samurais. Also, although the cultural differences between Simon and Kojiro are usually handled with sensitivity and humor, some stereotypes appear occasionally, as when the samurai treats Simon to platitudes as counsel (“Invincibility lies in one’s self”), even in the middle of a battle. Also, the prose sometimes flirts with a style that comes off as more quippy than comic. For instance, after a samurai tells Simon a story about a battle with extraordinary modesty, the Englishman thinks to himself: “By God, these buggers are humble….I’m going to have to teach them a thing or two about showmanship before I leave. ‘Well, that’s a bloody good story,’ he said aloud. ‘If even half of it’s true, you chaps should be the stuff of books and song.’ ” Despite these minor flaws, the book as a whole is a genuinely rollicking adventure, and it’s one that offers readers both lighthearted enjoyment and immersive drama.
An intelligent and enjoyable cross-cultural adventure.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-93064-9
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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