Bosco’s story carries readers into an innocent childhood world as easily as the current carries the boys on their adventures.
French writer Bosco’s classic 1953 story is a charming ode to childhood and the joys of getting lost in the lush Provençal countryside.
“Now, all this took place a long, long time ago, and today I am very nearly an old man," says Pascalet, the narrator. “But for the rest of my life, however long I may live, I will never forget those early days when I lived on the water. Those beautiful days are still with me in all their freshness.” Despite his parents’ warnings and his inability to swim, young Pascalet can’t help himself: The beauty of the river and the surrounding woods and flowers beckons, and he can’t resist. He sneaks away from the crabby old aunt who’s watching him while his parents are away, takes a rickety boat out on the water, and soon befriends a young boy named Gatzo, who’s also a runaway. Together they explore the shoreline, play games, hunt imaginary beasts, fish, sleep under the stars, and discover the ruined chapel of Our Lady of Still Waters hidden among the reeds. Their idyll doesn't last; when they meet a young girl who says people are looking for them, Gatzo—who was in trouble when Pascalet met him—flees, and Pascalet is heartbroken at the loss of a new friend. But the two meet again because of a strange marionette show in a riverside village, later forming a strong brotherly bond. A small gem from Bosco (1888-1976), this book has been described as a French Huckleberry Finn even though a comparison with Thoreau’s Walden might make more sense. Pascalet’s seven precious days on the river result in a spiritual awakening that gives him a deeper connection to the natural world. “I did not know what a soul was,” he thinks. “At that age you do not. But I clearly sensed that this joy was more than my body.”
Bosco’s story carries readers into an innocent childhood world as easily as the current carries the boys on their adventures.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781681377421
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A careening, oddly timely tour of recent history, and trademark Pynchon.
Pynchon returns, this time with a wacky whodunit that spans two continents.
What’s a sub without cheese? That’s not to be taken literally, like so much of Pynchon. The sub in question is a German one plying, in an unlikely scenario, the depths of Lake Michigan. There, in Milwaukee, we find Hicks McTaggart, gumshoe, who “has been ankling around the Third Ward all day keeping an eye on a couple of tourists in Borsalinos and black camel hair overcoats from the home office at 22nd and Wabash down the Lake”—the Chicago mob, in other words, drawn to Milwaukee in the void created by the absence of one Bruno Airmont, “the Al Capone of Cheese in Exile,” having legged it with a trunkload of cash some years earlier. Where could Bruno be? And why are those Germans, in those prewar days of Depression and protonationalism, skulking about under the waves? McTaggart will soon find out, sort of, having already been exposed to plenty of chatter—for, “this being Wisconsin, where you find more varieties of social thought than Heinz has pickles, over the years German American politics has only kept growing into a game more and more complicated.” Complicated it is. Trying to keep tabs on the twists and turns of Pynchon’s plot is a fool’s errand, but suffice it to say that it involves bowling, Les Paul, organized crime, Count Basie, a Russian bike gang, Nazis, and, yes, cheese, as well as some lovely psychedelic moments, including one where “fascist daredevil aviators are playing poker with Yangtze Patrol veterans who believe all that airplanes are good for is to be shot down.” Pynchon did the private dick thing to better effect in Inherent Vice (2009), a superior yarn in nearly every respect, so this one earns only an average grade—but then, middling Pynchon is better than a whole lot of writers’ best.
A careening, oddly timely tour of recent history, and trademark Pynchon.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781594206108
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
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