An often obvious, generally unpleasant novel studded with glimmers of brilliance.
Prizewinning Polish novelist/journalist/playwright Masłowska returns with a grotesque phantasmagoria of consumer excess set in a nightmarish American city.
First published in 2012 and now translated into English by Paloff, this novel is less concerned with plot than with the construction of its relentlessly miserable surreality, a near-future America courtesy of Hieronymus Bosch. But to the extent there is a plot, it is the dissolution of a friendship between two young woman, Farah and Joanne, who had “hit it off fatally right from the get-go.” But then Jo falls in love with a “pathetic—yes, pathetic, in Fah’s opinion—salesman at a kitchen and bath store, allegedly with a degree in Hungarian studies,” ditching Fah for her new coupled life of extreme public displays of affection. This repulses Fah for several reasons—it is not only that, in this new world order, Fah barely exists, but also that Jo has what Fah does not, which is cosmically unfair given that Jo isn’t even attractive. And so Fah is left to traverse the vapid maw of a city mostly alone but having “resolved unequivocally to open herself to the richness of existence” thanks to a book—“A Life Filled With Miracles: Learn to See the Magic of Existence in Just 14 Days, by Manfred Peterson, Ph.D.,” which she’d found, by chance, in her building’s laundry room. Masłowska’s (Snow White and Russian Red, 2005) critique of manic hypercapitalism has the subtlety of a battering ram: The young people who hang out on “Bohemian Street,” for example are viciously wealthy; poverty is now a high-fashion aesthetic. There are ads promising “Free brain reduction with every enlargement (penis or both breasts)” and headlines offering tips for sexier abortions. Mostly, this breezy cynicism is exhausting without feeling especially fresh, but Masłowska does occasionally reach darkly delightful new heights: A description of a trendy cafe offering “little tables where dogs can sit down with their MacBooks” is so absurdly extended—and so deranged in its detail—that it’s genuinely funny. Likewise, her analysis of human behavior is, every so often, shocking in its precision. If only it happened more frequently.
An often obvious, generally unpleasant novel studded with glimmers of brilliance.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-941920-82-4
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Deep Vellum
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing...
Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past.
Moving back and forth between Afghanistan and California, and spanning almost 40 years, the story begins in Afghanistan in the tranquil 1960s. Our protagonist Amir is a child in Kabul. The most important people in his life are Baba and Hassan. Father Baba is a wealthy Pashtun merchant, a larger-than-life figure, fretting over his bookish weakling of a son (the mother died giving birth); Hassan is his sweet-natured playmate, son of their servant Ali and a Hazara. Pashtuns have always dominated and ridiculed Hazaras, so Amir can’t help teasing Hassan, even though the Hazara staunchly defends him against neighborhood bullies like the “sociopath” Assef. The day, in 1975, when 12-year-old Amir wins the annual kite-fighting tournament is the best and worst of his young life. He bonds with Baba at last but deserts Hassan when the latter is raped by Assef. And it gets worse. With the still-loyal Hassan a constant reminder of his guilt, Amir makes life impossible for him and Ali, ultimately forcing them to leave town. Fast forward to the Russian occupation, flight to America, life in the Afghan exile community in the Bay Area. Amir becomes a writer and marries a beautiful Afghan; Baba dies of cancer. Then, in 2001, the past comes roaring back. Rahim, Baba’s old business partner who knows all about Amir’s transgressions, calls from Pakistan. Hassan has been executed by the Taliban; his son, Sohrab, must be rescued. Will Amir wipe the slate clean? So he returns to the hell of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and reclaims Sohrab from a Taliban leader (none other than Assef) after a terrifying showdown. Amir brings the traumatized child back to California and a bittersweet ending.
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible.Pub Date: June 2, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-245-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
SEEN & HEARD
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