More than a few too many characters, subplots, and themes muffle the impact of this grandiose historical picaresque by the Mexican author of the previously translated and essentially similar 1492 (1991). Aridjis's narrative is divided into 27 ``visions'' seen, and relayed to the reader, by Alfonso de LÇon, a monk whose dedication to his vocation as an illuminator of manuscripts does not protect him from yielding frequently to carnal desires or from the threat of a bloody reunion with his malevolent twin brother, Abd Allah of Cordova, a powerful warrior member of the Saracen armies whom Alfonso and his brethren devoutly believe ``will annihilate all Christendom before the year 1000 comes to an end.'' The novel begins in a confusing welter of unrelated scenes, then settles for a time into a chronological account of the twins' birth (to a Moorish Caliph's concubine), their upbringing and education, and the separate paths their warring temperaments set them on. Then we're swiftly cast back to a kaleidoscopic landscape delineated with apocalyptic imagery and numbingly explicit descriptions of sexual acts and physical violence, and populated by assorted minstrels, pilgrims, hermaphrodites, and such laboriously fabricated grotesques as Isidoro, the Messiah of the Poor, a kind of Marxist Lord of Misrule reputed to possess ``a celestial letter signed by the Lord Jesus, which...authenticated him as the true Son of God.'' We feel the book straining to impress its readers (the addition of a nine-page Bibliography seems, shall we say, a trifle pretentious?). Eventually, though, the conflict between the brothers resurfaces, then climaxes in battle, finally determining whether Alfonso indeed is ``the Lord of the Last Days'' who will bind up the Evil One, thus preserving the Christian faith for another thousand years. The seed of a powerful fiction here becomes drenched early on by melodramatic fustian, and never grows into anything remotely resembling a coherent novel.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-14342-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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