A book for insatiate lovers of heavy, religious, action-packed fiction.
A religious epic about the ultimate battle between good and evil.
At turns techno-thriller, horror novel, heroic fantasy and Old Testament tome, the central novelty is The Warrior of God’s clever conversion of biblical entities into modern superheroes and villains. Recasting these familiar canonical angels and demons, the novel serves up a Special Forces version of Gabriel and a pitiless advocate of the apocalypse in Baal. Awakened in the lands formerly known as Babylonia, Baal’s millennial slumber is disturbed during a well-drilling operation in Iraq. Indeed, the novel’s entire political backdrop is unapologetically topical. Feeding on the fears of those unfortunate enough to approach, Baal finally awakens from his millennial slumber and assiduously begins his annihilation of all that is good, usually by invading the minds of any mortal he chooses. Meanwhile, the high-tech descendants of the Oracle of Delphi, led by the indefatigable Walter, locate Gabriel in an ancient sarcophagus and transport his atrophied body back to Chicago. Oracle exists to assist Gabriel’s rehabilitation, but he’s a bit grumpy from a few thousand years of sleep and far from the familiar winged avatar of god. He quickly recovers and masters several modern martial arts–culminating in a death match against 32 professional killers recruited to test his new skills. Gabriel conquers, all while being brought up-to-date by a team of obnoxious humans. Walter, the brilliant, Twinkie-loving, reluctant scientist hero, succeeds wonderfully as counterpoint and light comic relief throughout the novel. He, as much of humanity, is an endless exasperation for Gabriel. Expletives abound in this Torah-sized tome, and though it relies a bit too heavily upon these lexical choices for eliciting emotion, the book’s depth, imaginative revisions and engaging characters will move readers. The pulsing plot spans the globe and solidly incorporates the threat of nuclear annihilation into the broader cosmic struggle between good and evil. It’s eschatology on all fronts–metaphysical and political. As with most novels of tremendous breadth, there are some characters who are easily forgotten and some subplots less than germane. However, there is little room for a reader’s lamentation after the brutal endgame played by Gabriel and Baal in the novel’s denouement, and Walter’s final metamorphosis is an ironic image that satisfies in the best, unexpected way.
A book for insatiate lovers of heavy, religious, action-packed fiction.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-4990-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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