As in his first novel, The Wasp Factory (1984), Banks here attempts in the realist mode to portray the corrosive state of contemporary Britain through its demoralizing effect on his characters; the rest of the book is science fiction. One could wonder, in this particular book, why the two genres appear together. Graham, a callow art student of 19, falls for a dark divorcee of 23, Sara, introduced by a gay friend, Slater. Pre-Raphaelite Sara (at once a damsel in distress and vaguely threatening) lives in a borrowed flat with a leather-clad masked biker, his sexual prowess symbolized by the Post Office Tower, hers by the Camden Canal (both neighborhood landmarks). She flirts platonically with poor Graham, saying she's psyching up to break with the biker, whom Graham never meets. Then there's Stephen Grout, a sort of repulsive yet semi-divine madman who, in convincingly drawn scenes, is fired by his construction boss, has a pointless interview at the unemployment office, and half-suffocates as he rushes along the sidewalk between "islands"—these being certain cars which "let" him breathe. (He believes he is an exile from very important galactic Wars, and wants to get back where he came from.) And last there's boredom: in a decrepit castle on Earth millenia hence, an aged couple, exiles themselves from "the Wars," play endless board games, while, in the castle basement, thousands of other exiles stand on chairs with their heads in holes in the ceiling, through which they enter the minds of humans living in the past (our present). When the old man tries it, he gets into the head of an Asian peasant woman instead of Stephen Grout's—thus the two worlds never link up, and Banks spurns his chance to tie these disparate plots together. The only connection happens in the midst of a regrettable surprise ending: hurtling towards the flat, the biker causes an accident disabling Grout. The biker, it turns out, is actually Slater (the supposedly gay friend), who has been for years sleeping with Sara—his sister. They have used Graham as a sort of sexual stimulant. So the elaborate plot turns out to have been an elaborate trick, and, along with poor Graham, the reader feels merely cheated in the end.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1985
ISBN: 0316858536
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1985
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
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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