Mostly painful reminiscences of British life—as offered round the dinner table and out on the porch in a Caribbean setting more vivid than the anecdotes shared there. Grenadian author Buffong (Under the Silk Cotton Tree, 1993) does luminously evoke the close ties among people on Grenada, with the balmy climate and warm sea (always close enough for a swim) contrasting violently with Aunt Sarah's and Uncle Dolphus's tales of life in England. The couple never felt warm there, even in summer, were subjected to crude racial prejudice and endured demeaning jobs, like cleaning latrines, were paid lower wages for the same work whites did, and suffered frequent insults or unprovoked attacks. Though tempted often to leave, the two met and married over there, then stayed on until they were eligible for a pension and had saved enough money to buy a piece of land back home. Now in their 70s, they raise animals and grow vegetables, selling the surplus in town. But the past's pain is still alive and real. Their stories, often interrupted by comments from neighbors and relatives, are recorded by Dorothy, Aunt Sarah's favorite niece, who, intrigued by the elderly couple's experiences abroad, spends most of her time with them. Dorothy, like the other listeners, is fascinated with England, the place where so many islanders go in hopes of a better life. But the tales they hear describe a hard cold place where the neighbors don't greet one another and the ``people didn't laugh at all and when they laugh it never sounded like a laugh and the sun never felt like the `real sun.' '' Not riveting stuff, but the very ordinariness is the appeal—in reminisences that are able to comfort and also sustain families when they get together. A quiet amble down memory lane that instructs as well as entertains—gently, a little.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7043-4423-8
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Women’s Press/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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