A contemporary, razor-edged fairy tale—very dark chocolate but likely to be gobbled up.
In Harris’s sequel to Chocolat (1999), the paranormally gifted chocolate-maker Vianne Rocher has moved from rural France to Paris, where she tries to create a life of anonymity.
After an unfortunate “accident”—a child’s magical impulse gone astray—Vianne has forsworn her paranormal power to ensure her family’s stability. Using an assumed name, she lives above her chocolate shop in Montmarte with 11-year-old Anouk (now called Annie by schoolmates) and four-year old Rosette, who does not speak but possesses special gifts for drawing, signing and creating her own “accidents” despite her mother’s attempts to avoid them. Vianne herself no longer makes her own “special” candies. Her middle-aged, well-meaning but conventional landlord, Thierry, has become her suitor, and she has exchanged her red dress for basic black. Enter Zozie de l’Alba, flamboyant, charming and soulless, a woman who lives by stealing identities, whether by literal theft of credit cards or by more supernatural means. Zozie is attracted to the energy of the chocolatier and particularly to Anouk, who is struggling with heightened preteen anxieties and resentments, a desire both to fit in and remain different. Iago-like Zozie insinuates herself into Vianne’s family. She draws much-needed new customers by redecorating the shop and charming patrons while encouraging Vianne to make her own delicious, if no longer magical, candies. She becomes Vianne’s friend and a confidante to Anouk as the girl sorts out social problems at school. But Zozie lets readers know early on that her plans are sinister. She wants Vianne’s identity and carefully drives a wedge between mother and daughter. Then Vianne’s old lover, and Rosette’s secret father, Roux, shows up. Zozie senses a kindred amoral spirit. The psychology of these characters is as complicated and spellbinding as their purported magic.
A contemporary, razor-edged fairy tale—very dark chocolate but likely to be gobbled up.Pub Date: April 8, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-143162-3
Page Count: 444
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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