by James Morrow ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 2015
Prolix and period-appropriate language lends humor and an arch, Thackeray-esque tone but palls after hundreds of pages...
Following in Darwin’s footsteps, an actress leads an expedition to Galapagos.
Morrow’s picaresque novel, set circa 1850, is intended to be rollicking but ends up simply tedious. Chloe Bathurst, who specializes in ingénue roles in some of London’s most lurid melodramas, loses her employ through a comic series of events and, by an even quirkier twist, is hired by Charles Darwin as a zookeeper to live specimens he brought back to England. When Chloe learns of the Shelley Prize, whereby the late poet’s followers will award a large sum to whomever can prove the existence—or not—of God, she swipes a précis of Darwin’s longer treatise on evolution and, through yet another improbable turn, is commissioned by the Shelley Society to head for Galapagos to prove Darwin’s theories (which she has misrepresented as her own). In her party are her cardsharp twin brother, Algernon, an episcopal cleric, Chadwick, a rakish ex-pirate, Dartworthy, a dissolute sea captain, etc.; almost as if one of her melodramas had been transposed to the high seas. After being shipwrecked, Chloe’s expedition finds itself on a barge in the Amazon jungle, where it suffers attrition thanks to piranhas and an anaconda snake. After a bout of malaria, Chloe gets religion and almost abandons her quest, but then Chadwick informs her that a rival church-sponsored expedition is on its way to the Galapagos to exterminate every tortoise, lizard and iguana. Occasionally Morrow cuts away to that expedition’s progress and also to another candidate for the prize who is traveling the Middle East in search of Noah’s Ark. When Chloe and her crew get bogged down in the Peruvian rubber wars, despite their noble aims of rescuing natives enslaved on the latex plantations, readers too may be tempted to abandon the quest.
Prolix and period-appropriate language lends humor and an arch, Thackeray-esque tone but palls after hundreds of pages wherein the plot flags and the characters never truly reveal themselves.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05401-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2020
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Amor Towles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules...
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Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.
Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade," says the companionable narrator. For the Count, that way of life ultimately becomes less about aristocratic airs and privilege than generosity and devotion. Spread across four decades, this is in all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. Though Stalin and Khrushchev make their presences felt, Towles largely treats politics as a dark, distant shadow. The chill of the political events occurring outside the Metropol is certainly felt, but for the Count and his friends, the passage of time is "like the turn of a kaleidoscope." Not for nothing is Casablanca his favorite film. This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can't begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind.
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules of Civility (2011).Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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