Not Urquhart’s best, but another memorable illustration of her conception of the revivifying power of art.
Intermittently clunky symbolism and occasional outcroppings of melodramatic improbability dilute the force of this otherwise impressive fifth novel from the Canadian author.
The story follows Urquhart’s earlier fiction in its emphasis on the artistic life (The Underpainter, 1997, etc.). In a series of overlapping extended scenes ranging from the late 19th century to the aftermath of WWI, Urquhart creates a monument, so to speak, to the concept of creating monuments, and to their makers. Her background action is the arrival of Bavarian Catholic priest Archangel Gstir, in 1867, in the southwestern Ontario village of Shovenal, populated mostly by German immigrants. Father Gstir’s dream of building a magnificent church is realized with the help of Joseph Becker, an accomplished woodcarver (who also works in stone). Joseph’s gift is inherited by his granddaughter Klara, a seamstress whose artistic energies are awakened after her mother’s death from cancer, the disappearance of her older brother Tilman (named for a celebrated 16th-century woodcarver, but indifferent to the craft so long practiced in his family), and the death of her lover Eamon O’Sullivan on a battlefield in France. The novel’s major themes draw together when the bereaved Klara, learning of the plans of Canadian sculptor Walter Allward (a real historical figure) to create a stone memorial in France honoring his country’s war dead, travels to France, disguises herself as a man in order to join Allward’s crew of sculptors, and finds peace through both the exercise of her skill and a climactic reconciliation with the restless Tilman. This process is affecting because Klara is a closely observed and vividly portrayed character. Most of the others are far less distinct (with the partial exception of the passionately idealistic Father Gstir).
Not Urquhart’s best, but another memorable illustration of her conception of the revivifying power of art.Pub Date: May 13, 2002
ISBN: 0-670-03044-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
