Chaos theory as erudite fiction: a bleak yet comic odyssey exploring and expiating human frailties. Read it slowly and savor...
Johan Thoms was born in 1894 with a remarkably large head, and by age 9 he had humiliated an irascible grandmaster in chess. When this brilliant boy left his Bosnian village for the University of Sarajevo, he made a mistake that may have precipitated World War I.
In Thornton’s debut novel, the "overeager, impatient, and optimistic" (and fictional) Thoms is inserted into history as the chauffeur who innocently pilots Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, to their assassination in 1914. A sparkling student, when he gets to college he makes friends and begins a love affair with Lorelei Ribeiro, whose husband had "found a watery grave with the Titanic the previous year." Then his schoolteacher father descends into a mad obsession with Pythagoras and the boy must find work. He becomes an occasional driver for Oskar Pitiorek, an Austrian general based in Sarajevo, and the die is cast. After Franz Ferdinand's death, a guilt-mad Thoms rescues Cicero, a dying orphan; wanders to Portugal’s Lands End; meets Hemingway, Orwell, and Dorothy Parker during the Spanish Civil War; anonymously writes successful novels about "The White Kilted Brigadier"; and eventually grows into "an exquisite old man" seeking a "wormhole in the space-time continuum." Thornton’s arcane references and wordplay dazzle—Thoms’ "slow foreplay with the books" of the Kama Sutra, for instance—and his voice has echoes of Gabriel García Márquez (sans magical realism).
Chaos theory as erudite fiction: a bleak yet comic odyssey exploring and expiating human frailties. Read it slowly and savor it.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-00-755149-1
Page Count: 300
Publisher: The Friday Project
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
An interesting World War II narrative is dragged down by a less-engaging present-day story.
A woman who can see ghosts becomes tangled in a mystery involving European war brides who crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary.
Brette has had the sight since she was a little girl. The ability to see the dead runs in her family, but ever since an aunt told her she was better off ignoring the ghosts she encounters, that’s exactly what she’s done. That is, until an old classmate needs her help and Brette inadvertently becomes drawn into the lives of three women from the past. As Brette communicates with a spirit and tries to unravel the mystery behind one of the ship’s tragedies, Meissner (Secrets of a Charmed Life, 2015, etc.) also tells the stories of two of the ship’s passengers: Annaliese Lange, who is escaping from a marriage to a Nazi, and Simone Devereux, who lost her family in the war. Annaliese's and Simone’s stories are engaging and heartbreaking; Brette’s point of view, though, is less interesting and never seems as urgent. Also, the multiple points of view are occasionally hard to keep track of, especially when it isn’t yet clear how they intersect. Although the stories of Annaliese and Simone are captivating and well-researched, readers may find themselves wishing Meissner had devoted more of the book to the women on the ship and less to Brette and her ability to see ghosts.
An interesting World War II narrative is dragged down by a less-engaging present-day story.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-47600-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cherry blossomdelicate, with images as carefully sculpted as bonsai, this tale of the life of a renowned geisha, one of the last flowers of a kind all but eliminated by WW II, marks an auspicious, unusual debut. Japan is already changing, becoming industrialized and imperialistic, when in 1929 young Chiyo's fisherman father sells her to a house in Kyoto's famous Gion district. The girl's gray- eyed beauty is startling even in childhood, so much so that her training is impeded by the jealousy of her house's primary geisha, the popular, petty Hatsumomo. Caught trying to run away, Chiyo loses her trainee status until taken under the wing of Mameha, a bitter rival of Hatsumomo. Chiyo flourishes with Mameha as her guide, soon receiving her geisha name, Sayuri, and having her mentor skillfully arrange the two main events vital to a geisha's success: the sale of Sayuri's virginity (for a record price), and the finding of a sugar-daddy to pay her way. Seeing the implications of Japan's militarism, Mameha pairs Sayuri with the general in charge of army provisions, so that as WW II drags on she and her house have things no one else in Gion can obtain. After the war, with her general dead and others vying for her attention, Sayuri pines anew for the only man she ever loved—an electrical- corporation chairman whose kindness to a crying Chiyo years before altered the course of her future. He seems out of reach since his right-hand man and closest friend is her most ardent admirer, but in the end her long-thwarted happiness is accomplished. Though incomparable in its view of a geisha's life behind the scenes, the story loses immediacy as it goes along. When modern times eclipse Gion's sheltered world, the latter part of Sayuri's life—compared to the incandescent clarity of its first decades- -seems increasingly flat. (First printing of 75,000)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-375-40011-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
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