A fresh perspective on modern culture, peppered with colorful dialogue that keeps the story afloat.
The consequences of being raised by hippie parents in a commune begin to loom large for two siblings.
Deservedly lauded for his debut novel and its subsequent indie-film adaptation, Dunthorne (Submarine, 2008) loses some traction but gains some writing chops with his sophomore outing. The book is set at Blaen-y-Llyn, a commune in south Wales whose experiment in self-sufficiency is beginning to fray at the edges after 20 years of isolation. The locals (and some of the residents) call it The Rave House, following a particularly noisy birthday party for teenager Kate. After years of exposure to nudity, drugs, goats and self-indulgence, Kate has decided to rebel in the most divisive way she can think up: dating a meat-headed local boy named Geraint and indulging in the banal amenities of suburban life outside the commune. At the heart of her rebellion is the growing tension between her parents: Don, the community’s bearded founder in love with his own skewed ideology, and Freya, a long-suffering spouse whose growing sense of discontent is throwing Blaen-y-Llyn into disarray. A number of other odd characters fill out the ensemble, from a dope-addled romantic smitten with another member of the community to a former ad man who appears to be quietly documenting the community’s demise for his own selfish purposes. The book’s beating heart is Kate’s brother Albert, a 12-year-old whose burgeoning sexuality, scalding intellect and off-kilter sense of humor put him at odds with everyone around him. The best scenes are those that put Albert and his beloved sister at odds. “Where were Mum and Dad while you were being brainwashed?” asks Albert. “I wash my own brain,” Kate retorts. While it lacks the self-awareness and cohesion of Submarine, this novel holds up admirably as a funny if meandering portrait of a postmodern family whose collapse is as meaningful as their coming together.
A fresh perspective on modern culture, peppered with colorful dialogue that keeps the story afloat.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6684-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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