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TAIKO

Name: TAIKO
Author: Eiji Yoshikawa
ISBN: 4-77001-570-4

by Eiji Yoshikawa ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 1992

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A homely, clever boy from the provinces survives a cheerless childhood and, through diligence, high-quality work, and devotion to his employers, eventually unites 16th-century Japan and becomes the country's supreme ruler. Under the emperor, of course. The previous megawork by the late Yoshikawa (d. 1962), and the first to appear in the US, was Musashi (1981). Little Hiyoshi, whose unfortunate looks lead everyone to call him ``monkey,'' is the only son of a poor country samurai and a much put-upon mother. Not what we have come to think of as the model Japanese worker, Hiyoshi is the nail that sticks up and gets hammered, time and again, for his troubles. Farmed out to a series of craftsmen, the boy's uncontrolled tongue loses him job after job until he is reduced to itinerant needle sales. Eventually, he moves out of needles and into the samurai business, signing on with sundry busy warlords. A succession of weakened shoguns has resulted in total decentralization of power in Japan, and there is always somebody doing battle with somebody else. Hiyoshi moves up the assistant warlord career ladder until he at last hooks up with the brilliant Lord Nobunaga and becomes his right-hand man. The young, far from wealthy Nobunaga begins uniting province after province after province after province. Hiyoshi becomes more and more indispensable and is awarded better and better jobs and a succession of new, mildly confusing surnames. Years later, when Nobunaga is at last defeated by an old ally, Hiyoshi, now Hiyoshita, grabs the reins and continues the consolidation process until the samurai are all subjugated and the country is pacified in time for a nice golden age. Episodic, bloody, prim, and quite long. There are no helpful western interpreters, only a couple of references to missionaries and the Portuguese. Determined readers will find—buried under the hundreds of decapitated warriors—the roots of the present Japanese international business success, and the country's attitudes toward women, unions, etiquette, and suicide.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1992

ISBN: 4-77001-570-4

Page Count: 926

Publisher: Kodansha

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
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by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.