Almost all of Greene's serious works have been framed within the context of Catholicism, and while intimations of grace and disgrace hover over his new book here, there is no sterner conflict-no deadlock between the flesh and the faith. For Querry, the central character, has come "to the end of everything"- and the symptomatic attitudes of his predecessors (failing priests, disappointed idealists, hollow men) the pessimism- the doubt- the denial, here reach an impossible indifference. In his escape from the world, (an easy success with women, real fame as an architect) Querry comes to a leproserie in the Congo attached to a Catholic mission and run by a Doctor Colin whose only belief is a practical humanity. There he is assigned a servant- Deo Gratias- a "burnt-out case"- a leper who loses everything that can be eaten away before he is cured. And there Querry, who is obviously just as mutilated, attempts to remain uninvolved. Deo Gratias' disappearance however impels him to go out and search for him in the bush- and save his life. As the weeks pass, he works a little- designs a new hospital. But the world does not respect his privacy; a journalist exploits the legend which is growing- the second coming of Schweitzer?- "The Recluse of the Great River". And a young wife, Marie, unhappily married to an aging planter, uses him to escape, and while he is completely innocent of any interest in her, exposes him to the injuries of an aggrieved husband in a finale which is regrettably closer to farce than to tragedy..... To much of this Greene brings his expert touch: the steamy, fetid country; the contrasts of character which range from Doctor Colin's dedication to Querry's repudiation, from Deo Gratias' touching gratitude to Marie's childlike guile. If there is a certain sense of failure it is perhaps Querry's- the commitment he avoids may also be the reader's. Strong publisher backing and the author's name assure initial attention.
Pub Date: Feb. 17, 1960
ISBN: 0140185399
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1960
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
PROFILES
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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