A surrealist novel of political intrigue.
The De Wardins’ debut is set in the fictional country of Voskia. As a duchess, Maria Langlord has led a privileged life, but this 19-year-old is not the perfect debutante her parents and their acquaintances believe her to be. Secretly she’s been taking ballet lessons in Unsettled Town, which, though geographically close, is greatly removed from the world Maria has always known. It is here that she meets and becomes involved with a cast of peculiar characters and once again comes in contact with the dangerous but dashing violinist that crashed her birthday party. There’s political unrest in Voskia: a new political party and a presidential candidate, Hillborn, whose racist ideology is stirring up trouble. Maria’s parents and governess have fallen under his spell, even as Maria is making new friends among the Romanies that the party despises. Maria is pulled into the thick of things when she learns that she has an uncle she’s never met and when she’s entrusted with valuable, coveted information. Hillborn’s campaign grows in strength, in part because he has a habit of killing off the opposition. Maria is caught between two worlds, and the actions she takes lead to a cliffhanger ending that sets the stage for a sequel. The novel has a dreamlike quality, particularly in the descriptions of Maria’s forays to Unsettled Town. The wordy writing style has the feel of something written with a thesaurus in one hand: “Lord Byronaless, his bejewelled hands wriggling over his covered cranium, bravely let his short legs laboriously take his stout self in the direction of the individual who had fired: Chief of Police Croft Rainhard.” Elsewhere, foreign phrases—“Isso ai meu povo! Samba no pe!”—and a few other terms are clarified in footnotes. Still, the imaginary setting and undefined time period allow for comparisons to historical and modern events, and readers who can wade through the clunky text will find an intriguing story with a sympathetic protagonist.
Surrealist scenes and complicated language get in the way of an exciting, suspenseful story that’s part coming-of-age tale, part political thriller.
Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1479747436
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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