Intriguing ideas highlighted by Kotek’s poetry and largely underserved by his prose.
A collection of poetry and prose exploring topics such as love, devotion, pain, truth, fundamentalism, war and death.
This volume’s primary pleasures are a wealth of diverse syntax and some arresting, insightful images. “Savage,” for instance, describes humanity as “Trespassers, aimless wanderers; / Mere gypsies in our world,” while “Dubiety” ends with a nice metaphor for doubt as “the only canoe, / To row around in the ocean of life.” Long by the standards of poetry and short by the standards of prose, most pieces are divided into sections, and some pieces contain both poetry and prose. The prose occasionally offers compelling ideas, such as the beginning of “Religion”—“Religions should not be given much importance than bathing soaps. In privacy you apply soap on your body. Nobody is bothered what kind of soap you use when you take a bath in your privacy.” But most of the prose is prosaic and flat in its language and pretentious and preachy in content. A four-page piece on “Sex” informs us that “Sex is the topic forbidden by the neomoralist thinkers” and that societal inhibitions mean that “[a] natural thing like breathing is blocked with all the might. Will this have an alternative? No, this has led to perversions rather than alternatives. More homosexuals, lesbians, and more psychopaths are the result.” No representation ever successfully captures every element of the original it depicts, but it’s a bad sign when a writer announces his mistrust of language: “Words are meant to convey, but they are shallow. / The fathomed depths of experience cannot be expounded in words” (“Mind”). Kotek might find words less shallow if he didn’t attempt to squeeze such enormous ideas into such tiny spaces. Hopefully, in a second volume, he plays to the strengths found in his poetry and finds ways to overcome the weaknesses in his prose.
Intriguing ideas highlighted by Kotek’s poetry and largely underserved by his prose.Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-1462875238
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 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.
