An often entertaining novel of particular interest to fans of military epics and historical political intrigues.
In this third installment of Schrader’s (Defender of Jerusalem, 2015, etc.) series of historical novels on the life of crusader Balian d’Ibelin, the Christian and Islamic worlds vie for control of the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.
As the story begins, Jerusalem has fallen to Salah ad-Din Yusuf, sultan of Egypt and Damascus. Through clever negotiation, Balian secures the citizens’ lives, as well as the release of anyone able to pay a ransom; still, many thousands of poor people get sold into slavery, a fact that haunts Balian through the rest of the novel. After the death of Jerusalem’s Queen Sibylla, many question the idea that the usurper, King Guy de Lusignan—characterized as being “despised for leading the Christian army to an unnecessary defeat and losing the entire Kingdom as a result”—has the right to rule. Against a backdrop of flailing military campaigns to retake lost cities, a complicated scheme unfolds to put the queen’s sister, Balian’s stepdaughter, Isabella, on the throne after she repudiates her marriage to the ineffectual Humphrey de Toron and marries the more ambitious Conrad de Montferrat. The rift between the two pretenders to the throne is further complicated by the arrival of the kings of France and England, who each back a different claimant. But the presence of the larger-than-life King Richard the Lionheart, who ‘had seemed invincible—indeed, immortal,’ reinvigorates the Christian fighting forces, leading the armies to improbable victories. Overall, the novel’s prose is fluid and engaging, and Schrader presents the dialogue in clear, generally formal, modern language. However, this style may frustrate sticklers who are more concerned with authenticity than accessibility; for example, King Richard uses contemporary idiom when commenting on Guy de Lusignan’s chances of being chosen king: “He doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.” The volume of characters in the book can be daunting, especially as many take turns providing their own points of view. When clearly signaled, these shifts can offer engaging glimpses into the world of the story, but when they happen multiple times in the span of only a few pages, it can become confusing.
An often entertaining novel of particular interest to fans of military epics and historical political intrigues.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62787-397-0
Page Count: 514
Publisher: Wheatmark
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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