Searing, visceral tragicomedy of epic proportions, this novel of a cult leader and her followers on a Pacific island is Ballard's triumphant synthesis of the range of themes that have preoccupied him throughout his career (The Kindness of Women, 1991, etc.). The story begins as an updated, ecological version of Treasure Island when Nell, 16, meets the scruffy Dr. Barbara Rafferty as she's haranguing tourists in Honolulu about French plans to resume nuclear testing on Saint-Esprit atoll. At first Ballard treats us to a wacked-out modern comedy as a ship is found — courtesy of a media magnate whose cameras turn everything into a live TV program — and staffed by a multicultural crew: a Hawaiian nationalist, Japanese pilgrims from Hiroshima, a pharmaceutical millionaire with messianic impulses, filmmakers, a French air hostess. Later, instead of being a setback, the revelation that Dr. Barbara lost her medical license for easing a dozen elderly patients to their graves welds Neil and the others closer to her, setting in motion a descent into our modern nightmare — the egotistical fanaticism that seems to pervert all movements, faiths, ideals. As Dr. Barbara transforms herself from a Jane Goodall-like savior of the albatross to a leader of an island biosphere for all endangered species, Nell grows increasingly complicit with her unspecified agenda. Lured by a psychosexual undertow into her powerful personality — entranced by her ability to stage conflict and renewal out of the raw materials provided by a media-saturated world — Neil and the others turn Saint-Esprit into a commune, an environmental gulag, a killing field. Into their maw come visiting hippies, sailors, anthropologists, do-gooders, fodder for Dr. Barbara's final experiment: an all-female society with Neil its lone overworked stud, his death, it would seem, a foregone conclusion once a younger, stronger male appears. As fast-paced as a thriller, and always distinguished by Ballard's hallucinatory clarity and precise observations: a fiercely contrarian novel that's both Paradiso and Inferno. Probably Ballard's best and most accessible yet.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0006548148
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.
Catch-22 is an unusual, wildly inventive comic novel about World War II, and its publishers are planning considerable publicity for it.
Set on the tiny island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea, the novel is devoted to a long series of impossible, illogical adventures engaged in by the members of the 256th bombing squadron, an unlikely combat group whose fanatical commander, Colonel Cathcart, keeps increasing the men's quota of missions until they reach the ridiculous figure of 80. The book's central character is Captain Yossarian, the squadron's lead bombardier, who is surrounded at all times by the ironic and incomprehensible and who directs all his energies towards evading his odd role in the war. His companions are an even more peculiar lot: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who loved to win parades; Major Major Major, the victim of a life-long series of practical jokes, beginning with his name; the mess officer, Milo Minderbinder, who built a food syndicate into an international cartel; and Major de Coverley whose mission in life was to rent apartments for the officers and enlisted men during their rest leaves. Eventually, after Cathcart has exterminated nearly all of Yossarian's buddies through the suicidal missions, Yossarian decides to desert — and he succeeds.
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1961
ISBN: 0684833395
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1961
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