A clever but wearisome performance of postmodern literary theory.
A confusing novel loosely dramatizes Finland’s tumultuous political history.
J.I. Vatanen is a young Finnish actor, and after a performance, he’s drawn to twins M. and Maiju Lassila. The gender of the twins is apparently less than obvious—people ask all the time—but they identify as nonbinary. Maiju, though, is a female name, and throughout the narrative told by Vatanen, both are referred to as females. This basic uncertainty is at the heart of this bewildering memoir-novel, which at every turn communicates information to the reader that is often, sometimes immediately, called into suspicion. The trio become very close, forming a “magical embrace,” and Vatanen and Maiju in particular are “soulmates” from the start. Their friendship occurs during a perilous time in Finnish history—they all meet at the end of the 19th century when Finland is ruled by Russia, though with an “extraordinarily light” hand. The Russians execute a coup, however, and assert a more aggressive control of Finland, one designed to produce the “Russification” of the country, a history intelligently conveyed by the author. But the plot isn’t the point. The entire book is presented as a “psueodotranslation” of Vatanen’s work—it’s never obvious that the book Robinson purports to translate exists. Also, the book is a fictional memoir written by Vatanen about Maiju, but both names are pseudonyms for Algot Untola, a Red agitator executed during the civil war. Algot comes back to life, calling into question even his death. In short, Robinson ensures the reader is always lost and makes it clear this is his intention in the preface to the book, a literary approach with a long pedigree the author dutifully acknowledges. So what precisely is the point of deploying a derivative literary technique to tell an unintelligible story that lacks dramatic power? This question is likely to occur to the rare reader who makes it to the end of this postmodern facsimile offered as an experiment.
A clever but wearisome performance of postmodern literary theory.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 9781639885305
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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