by Jeanne Mackin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1996
The author of The Frenchwoman (1989) and The Queen's War (1991) again imaginatively (but responsibly, judiciously) samples French history and here constructs a witty, lightly satirical, entertaining amalgam of murder, greed, and revenge, all peculiarly attached to a kind of treasure hunt for an ancient Egyptian stela— a slab of stone picturing the goddess Hathor (appropriately, the goddess of love and laughter). The story takes place in 1798 Cairo, during Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of Egypt, with millennia-spanning stela- sightings in the fourth century b.c. and the fourth century a.d. At the start, Napoleon, glory-bound, is headed for Egypt, bringing along with his army a team of scholars to record the (generally unknown) history of Egypt and to find and claim its artifacts. Chief among the prizes is a stela thought to have once been owned by Alexander the Great. The panel, intended for a royal tomb, has a unique history: In 3737 b.c., a dying pharaoh had been robbed of immortality as the slab of stone destined to bear his name beside the image of the goddess Hathor (who would rescue him from death) was hidden by his nasty son-in-law. The pharaoh's daughter took revenge by means of a drink spiked with ground glass—a libation identical to one used in Napoleon's coffee during a dinner in Cairo. Luckily, the General refuses the drink, but a sheik's nephew dies. A young French couple, the Verdiers, banished to a temporary prison as suspects, ponder in Nick-and-Nora fashion: Who would try to knock off Napoleon? Meanwhile, there's a stela-hunt afoot. Among the hunters: a stone-eyed collector, Napoleon's doctor; the fiery Turkish widow of the sheik's nephew; a Turkish sheik hoping to bribe the fatuous collector Lord Elgin; Lord Elgin himself; and the Verdiers, hoping to return to Napoleon's good graces. There'll be night journeys, betrayals large and small, spying and mayhem. All this during the Nile's flooding, a ``season of charms and spells.'' A richly intelligent and charming spellbinder.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-57566-020-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1996
Share your opinion of this book
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
33
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2015
Kirkus Prize
winner
National Book Award Finalist
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.