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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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