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THE LOVE ARTIST

Name: THE LOVE ARTIST
Author: Jane Alison
ISBN: 0-374-23179-6

by Jane Alison ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2001

Literary life in privileged Ancient Rome: melodramatic, mysterious, believable, compelling.

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The great Roman poet, author of Ars Amatoria and the Metamorphoses, is the subject of Alison's fascinating debut: an imagined explanation of what it might have been that caused the emperor Augustus to exile Ovid from Rome for life.

As the story opens, Ovid (b. 43 b.c.) is taking a trip to the Black Sea, purportedly to remove himself from the emperor's view for a time—just out of caution—but also to catch his poetic breath pending the publication of the Metamorphoses, on which the ambitious Ovid pins his most fervent hopes for lasting fame. And such a lucky choice of getaway it is—for what finer creature should he meet along the forested Black Sea shores than Xenia, the sylph-like girl of 20, of immense beauty and mystery, who was found by villagers as an unparented infant. When she swims, she seems to become the water itself, reminding Ovid of his own characters and creations in the Metamorphosis—and leading him to feel stirrings of his next work. She must, of course, return with him to Rome, a prospect that thrills Xenia herself, though Ovid fully knows its dangers: as he learns, she's widely respected for her depth and prowess in the practice of witchcraft, and witchcraft is something that Augustus, in keeping with other of his regulatings of mystery and morality, has strictly forbidden. To Rome, nevertheless, the couple goes, and in the city acclaim does indeed await Ovid for his Metamorphosis, enough of it, in fact, to bring him the patronage of none less estimable than the unscrupulous and driven Julia, the grievously embittered granddaughter of Augustus himself. And so it is that more harm than good may befall Ovid as he progresses with his new work, Medea, modeled secretly on the extraordinary (and dangerous) Xenia, under the patronage of Julia, whose own true motivations won't be known until it's much too late for the ambitious, brilliant, and doomed poet.

Literary life in privileged Ancient Rome: melodramatic, mysterious, believable, compelling.

Pub Date: April 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-374-23179-6

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
VILLA E
by Jane Alison

- BOOK REVIEW
MEANDER, SPIRAL, EXPLODE
by Jane Alison

- BOOK REVIEW
NINE ISLAND
by Jane Alison

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Awards & Accolades

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59

Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

Booker Prize Winner

THE TESTAMENTS

by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

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Awards & Accolades

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59

Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

Booker Prize Winner

Atwood goes back to Gilead.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | LITERARY FICTION | DYSTOPIAN FICTION | SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FOURTEEN DAYS
edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston

- BOOK REVIEW
OLD BABES IN THE WOOD
by Margaret Atwood

- BOOK REVIEW
BURNING QUESTIONS
by Margaret Atwood

- SEEN & HEARD
Bernardine Evaristo Shares Booker Prize with Atwood

- SEEN & HEARD
Split Booker Prize Drawing Backlash

- SEEN & HEARD
Margaret Atwood Honored by Queen

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THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

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The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.