An unsettling juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness.
A Dutch sculptor reminisces about the love of his life in this new translation of a 1969 novel.
In the tradition of Nabokov’s Lolita or Breton’s Nadja, Wolkers’ novel tells the story of a man whose obsession with a woman consumes him. In this case, the woman is Olga, whom the artist meets when she picks him up hitchhiking. When the novel begins, their relationship is already over. We start with a portrait of the artist in his studio, masturbating to her memory and tormenting the American coeds who rent rooms from him. Interweaving vignettes of the love affair with its aftermath, in which Olga reappears and disappears at intervals, the artist must come to terms with what it's like to live and make art under the powerful spell of memory. Although the novel must have been a great deal of fun to translate—Garrett brings its lyricism to life as well as its sexuality and scatology—it makes for a disturbing read. In 1969, it may have been brave or even revolutionary for a male protagonist to admit his most erotic or disgusting thoughts or allow himself cleareyed moments of self-awareness. But at a time when the phrase “toxic masculinity” is in common parlance, it’s extra painful to see Olga (whom the artist calls his “sweet, red animal”) alternately brutalized and idealized by a narrator whose honesty, at least, seems meant to be admired. For all that, Wolkers is a lovely stylist, and the images of the memories that obsess the artist here—like Olga throwing her old dolls over a bridge into the water—don’t erase the bad taste of Olga’s powerlessness but do introduce some surprising notes of sweetness.
An unsettling juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-941040-47-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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