Simultaneously a delicious vampire tale and a meaningful exercise in remembering silenced voices and questioning the...
In Irish writer Le Fanu’s (Willing to Die, 1872, etc.) classic novella, a peculiar visitor arouses strange visions and sensations in a lonely young woman.
Nineteen-year-old Laura lives “rather a solitary” life in a Gothic manor tucked in the forests of Styria. So when a carriage overturns nearby, Laura urges her father to house the passenger inside: the beautiful yet capricious Carmilla, who mesmerizes Laura with her charisma and ability to enter her dreams. Le Fanu’s lush, lyrical prose adds a sinister dimension to the budding relationship while also conveying the passion the two women share: “Her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, ‘You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.' ” Since this is a foundational piece of vampire lore, readers will find little mystery around the root of Carmilla’s strange behavior—and why Laura falls prey to an inexplicable illness. Still, Laura’s wistful narration and Robert Kraiza’s expressive illustrations maintain an air of dread throughout. Carmen Machado’s (Her Body and Other Parties, 2017) introduction adds new dimensions to the tale by revealing that Le Fanu based his story on real letters written by a woman named Veronika Hausle, but he excised the queer content: “There was, in fact, so much more detail given” about Laura’s desire for Carmilla, Machado writes. “She spoke not of the fear of Carmilla’s return but of a profound desire for it.” Machado powerfully highlights the “inadequacy” of the original text and calls readers to do the hard work of reading the real story: “See if you cannot perceive what exists below: the erotic relationship of two high-strung and lonely women. The shared metropolis of their dreaming. An aborted picnic in the ruins.”
Simultaneously a delicious vampire tale and a meaningful exercise in remembering silenced voices and questioning the authority of tradition.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-941360-19-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Lanternfish Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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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