In 1804, a small force led by a contingent of U.S. Marines sets out to defeat a much larger army and capture Tripoli.
After years of wandering, Henry Doyle, the bastard son of an Irishman and raised by Mohawk Indians, is now a soldier of fortune in North Africa. He finds himself working with the Americans—the very people who massacred the Mohawk and drove him from his native land—as they attempt to invade Tripoli and place an American puppet on the throne, putting an end to years of piracy and, in the process, setting free several hundred American sailors captured by the brutal Pasha of Tripoli. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, Capt. Peter Kirkpatrick, who, unbeknownst to both men is Doyle’s half-brother, is a rising star in the U.S. Navy in command of the USS Eagle. Doyle and Kirkpatrick support William Eaton, a former officer in the Army who is leading the assault on Tripoli. But the mission is opposed by powerful forces—and elements within the U.S. military—who work to undermine Eaton at every step, making the odds of success for the ragtag Army very slim indeed. Written in crisp, compelling prose, the plot is deeply rooted in history. The action sequences, especially the naval encounters, are exceedingly well-done, full of enough detail to bring them to life without bogging down the action. The breadth of the author’s knowledge of history, local culture, military and naval technology and strategy of the time, religion, language and more is simply staggering, and the dialogue is clear, but peppered with enough period detail to make it ring true. Although Doyle’s story is somewhat farfetched, it is at least possible, and the characters here are developed enough to make such minor credulity stretching easy to overlook. The plot is labyrinthine, but readers who follow it carefully will be richly rewarded. An exceptional book, full of rich historical and cultural detail, great characters and thrilling action scenes.
Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456527303
Page Count: 387
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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