A major novel of manners, three-fifths completed at the time of Wharton's death in 1937 and published as a fragment in 1938, has now been finished with impressive spirit and skill by Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring. The novel, grand in scope and ambition, is set in Saratoga, Fifth Avenue, and London during the roaring 1870's—Wharton's golden age. It's the slightly helter-skelter story of three newly rich (and, in New York, socially unacceptable) American families who—under the tutelage of a high-spirited Anglo-Italian governess, Miss Testvalley (Testavaglia), a first cousin of Pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti—quickly conquer the upper reaches of English society. (The English aristocracy is drawn to the ``new money'' that Fifth Avenue rejects.) First, Brazilian-American bombshell Conchita Closson marries a disreputable younger son of an English marquis at the races in Saratoga, where Miss Testvalley has just joined the neighboring St. George family as governess. Then- -after a series of social snubs in New York—Conchita and her mother; Virginia St. George and Lizzie Elmsworth (Conchita's best friends); their socially aspiring, somewhat foolish mothers; and Miss Testvalley all set sail for London. There, through Miss Testvalley's offices, the beautiful Virginia St. George marries the respectable elder brother of Conchita's husband, and the dark and wily Lizzie Elmsworth marries a prominent MP. But the ostensible heroine here—and, inadvertently, the most successful social climber of them all—is Virginia's insignificant-looking but kind and intelligent younger sister, Annabel (Nan), who's prevailed upon to marry a socially exalted but utterly unloveable stick of a duke. The novel's last third tracks Nan's decision to divorce the duke, marry her true love—English gentleman Guy Thwarte—and flee with him to Greece. But what Nan never finds out is that her decision robs the deserving, adoring real heroine here, Miss Testvalley, of her own secret late-life lover—Guy's father, who suffers a heart attack on hearing the news about Nan and his son. Not entirely knitted together—some awfully vivid characters just drop from sight—but, still, this is wonderful to read. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-85219-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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