Set in the Roman Empire, a debut novel that rivals the ancient epics—at least for length. At the birth of Auriane, daughter of Baldemar, chieftain of a Germanic tribe during the reign of Roman emperor Nero, the priestess Ramis bestows her with a rare amulet and predicts that she will slay her father and become a priestess. During her teenage years, Auriane seems to defy fate, becoming a celebrated warrior among her people, who fend off Roman invaders in intoxicating battles fought with spears and shields. When they are defeated, the now legendary Auriane is captured alive for the pleasure of the new emperor, Domitian. On the night of the dreaded consummation she meets her true love and fellow wearer of the rare amulet, Marcus Julianus, the son of one of Baldemar's military opponents but himself a philosopher who spent his childhood in slavery. The romance blossoms while Auriane spars as a gladiator in the newly built Roman Colosseum and Marcus plots to overthrow Domitian. Marcus wants to whisk Auriane away, but she insists upon remaining until she slays her father's betrayer: the burly Odberht, once member of a rival tribe and now a gladiator/celebrity. It's refreshing to discover a female character who is heroic without being annoyingly spunky, and Gillespie's escapist tale commendably evokes the themes of virtue and noble sacrifice that characterized the literature of the Roman Empire. However, although the author tries to incorporate ancient magic, customs, and history into the story, these are merely gimmicks to unite a fiery barbarian girl with a brooding bourgeois boy. Their romance is plausible enough- -they are both intelligent, charismatic figures—but, despite the book's formidable size, the most interesting developments, such as the coup instigated by Marcus and Auriane's relationship with Baldemar, seems to happen in the wings, encapsulated in explanatory paragraphs. Earnest ambitions, but essentially a protracted, middling love story.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-425-14368-6
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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