The condition of Chile under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet is given savage and amusing expression here: the first English translation of a novel (originally published in 1988) by the author of Sacred Cow (see below—In Brief). Eltit's title adopts the phrase currently descriptive of the realm inhabited by disadvantaged aliens adrift in otherwise settled societies—but may also allude to the space initially shared by her (literal) twin narrators: their mother's womb, before they're born. In the first of matching narratives, ``he'' describes their conception, then their jealous enmity in utero, where ``she'' is positioned awkwardly—and, we may be sure, symbolically—beneath him (``I evaded her, of course, keeping as much distance between us a possible''). Through such humorously stiff, self-consciously paternalistic language, Eltit offers amusing pictures of the rivalry of baby brother and sister (while she manages to speak the first word, it's he who takes the first step), and of their dull- witted father's knee-jerk machismo (he mounts their unwilling mother even as she lies in bed consumed with fever). In the sister's subsequent narrative, tone and content change drastically. The birth of a favored younger sister drives the twins closer together, as does their apprehension of a hungry, menacing exterior world that looms just beyond their insular domestic comfort and threatens to snatch it away. As their bodies incestuously commingle, not only are the barriers between the two broken down but their family also becomes increasingly fragmented—as reflected in the increasing discordance and shrillness of the text. All of this comprises a superb metaphor for the political struggles in Chile, worked out with ingenious comic detail and marred only by a climactic, repetitive emphasis on visceral and strident sexuality that seems to be Eltit's signal weakness as a writer. For all that, a clever and original work that takes deadly aim at its several richly deserving targets.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1995
ISBN: 0-8032-1817-6
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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