Readable and ambitious, if muddled.
An interfaith retelling of the life of St. Francis.
Cast as a manuscript by St. Francis only allowed to be published over 800 years after his death, di Bernadone’s book explores the scope of St. Francis’ life through the commonalities of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. As a young soldier, Francis meets a Sufi convert named Abu Hashim, who introduces him to meditation, karma, the absence of self and other core tenets of contemplative religions. These ideas and practices inform Francis’ actions as he leaves his rich life behind to embrace “Lady Poverty” and ultimately to found the Franciscan order. The book is partially addressed to Clare of Assisi, one of Francis’ first followers and the founder of their sister order, the Order of Poor Ladies; it contains a supposed preface by her, though her role in the plot of the book itself is somewhat limited. The story manages to bring together in a satisfying and relatable way the various religions it explores, showing similarities among faiths that have long been supposed to be diametrically opposed. Choosing St. Francis as a vessel for this project seems a wise choice given his embodiment of compassion for other beings. As a work of historical fiction, however, the book falls somewhat flat, drawing on concepts such as “mind over matter” and the use of idioms like “played hooky” that didn’t exist at the ostensible time of its writing. All in all, the “found text” convention creates confusing additional narratives that fail to add much to the ideas being expressed. Despite this, contemplative concepts and practices are personalized through Francis’ experiences of them, and readers interested in these practices as they relate to Christianity will come away with a new view of the life of the famous saint.
Readable and ambitious, if muddled.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500307073
Page Count: 266
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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