A laborious attempt at philosophical theater.
A fantastical debut novel set during the Spanish Inquisition explores the distance between reality and dreams.
Antonio, the patriarch of the Tomé family in Madrid and an architect, announces at a gathering that he’s received a commission to build “a great altar in a great cathedral” in Toledo, and so the family is moving there. Once in Toledo, Esperanza, the wife of Antonio’s son, Narciso, experiences a series of erotically charged dreams in which she inhabits the body of another woman, Nora. In this nocturnal fantasy, Nora has a torrid affair with Narciso. Daniel Karpinski relentlessly interrogates the interstices between the real and the hallucinatory—Esperanza’s dreams at first seem like unconscious expressions of her own frustrations with waking life. But then they seem like prophecies when these imaginings start to leak into the world. Esperanza makes the acquaintance of Nora del Pulpo. Then Nora’s husband, Miguel, a public prosecutor, discovers the real affair between his wife and Narciso. As a result, Narciso is forced to clandestinely flee from the unmerciful judgment of the Inquisition. The book—translated from the Polish by Max Karpinski—is filled with fabulist contraventions of stark reality. Esperanza stumbles on an apparition in the basement, and Narciso conveys himself in a flying basket he operates with his mind. The story is composed in novelistic form, but each chapter begins with a short summary that often includes stage notes, as if the drama were designed to be performed in a theater. Daniel Karpinski is endlessly imaginative, and his massive philosophical ambitions are impressive. But the plot is agonizingly convoluted, and the author seems to consider readers’ bewilderment a sign of the tale’s sophistication. The prose is impenetrably dense and strains far too energetically for philosophical refinement. Even the chapter prefaces become confusedly entangled: “Doña Esperanza Tomé, disguised as Narciso Tomé, uses Maja, the former shop assistant, to deceive doña Nora del Pulpo, whose body, not too long ago, doña Esperanza used to betray herself with her own husband, who she now pretends to be.”
A laborious attempt at philosophical theater.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2368-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
