Drawn from lectures delivered to literary critics, this collection is more deaconly and theoretical than Kermode's last book on the legitimacy of interpretation, The Genesis of Secrecy. But it unshirkingly continues—with admirable steadfastness and without reactive hysteria—a reasoned case for hermeneutics, for a literary criticism that doesn't (as the new French and Yale-ites seem to do) throw out the baby with the bath-water. Kermode will not apologize for the sharp eye he keeps peeled for "secrecy, an inexplicable consonance" in fictional narratives: "We know it is there because the disturbance in the prose signals its presence. It is so arranged that we . . .may ignore it if we choose; but it is there, and has to do with expansion, with the reconciliation of art with honorable rest." This persistence of secrecy in texts, says Kermode, puts the Derrida/Barthes mania fora reader-made or "lisable" text to some disadvantage; all novels, he stresses, share a "property of narrative: it accepts and exploits the pluralities that arise from their situations." As examples, he goes far and wide to analyze Ford's The Good Soldier, Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Green's Loving, even Arnold Bennett's Riceyman Steps and the English mystery Trent's Last Case—finding each of them faux-naif, more knowing and lisable than the French school would even begin to give them credit for. Generous, patient, strenuous Kermode defangs the New French criticism of its self-congratulatory novelty; he demonstrates that all stories, as far back as the Gospels, will mold to some deconstructionist demands—but disproves the idea that any work can be totally self-referential, free-playing, and "unmeaning." This middle ground of serious criticism has so far found its clearest, most wide-ranging advocate in Kermode; and his new book, though difficult and strictly academic, is an important one—ecumenical, level, acute—in its field.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1983
ISBN: 0674048296
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
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