An antic, abrasively obscene, and extremely noisy first novel that attempts to do for the Persian Gulf War what M.A.S.H. and Catch-22 did for (or, if you will, to) the Korean War and WW II. The narrator, identified only as ``Greg,'' is a Navy airman specializing in tracking submarines who adopts the code name Aardvark. His real interests lie in capturing the screwy vicissitudes of everyday military life with his ``camcorder,'' and saturating himself in the intricate technological shoptalk of a war whose reality seems contained in TV images. Blinn recounts his likable nonhero's picaresque adventures (mixing it up stateside with a married buddy, hunkering down in Hawaii with a female literature major who despises Dead White Males) with a rough, slangy vigor that's great fun whenever his paragraphs aren't clogged with wearying technical detail. The disparity between Aardvark's flip intimacy with the carnage he monitors (while aboard an aircraft carrier heading toward the Mideast) and the very real terror that overtakes him when he's about to be thrust headlong into military action, isn't especially original, except for his wired, frantic, funny voice. The best things here are the impudent mockery of military logic (``Why practice anti-submarine warfare when the bad guys don't have subs?'') and the fresh comic invention (a pair of old ladies overheard discussing their favorite serial killers; an imitation-American fast food joint that advertises ``Dessert Storm Combos—Patriot burgers and Smart Bomb fries''). The novel's worst features—which, unfortunately, predominate—are its numerous echoes of Catch-22, which include its protagonist's flustered efforts to avoid combat, a comrade's surprising descent into murder and madness, a ship's doctor who calls himself ``Daneeka,'' and a bloody, surreal climax. Joseph Heller may not want to sue, but he won't want to finish the book either. Though this debut has both style and energy, it lacks the savage originality of the predecessors Blinn so clearly admires. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 7, 1997
ISBN: 0-316-09987-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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