And as for the Saxons? Well, suffice it to say that determined readers will learn a thing or two about all manner of...
A sprawling addition to the Arthurian cycle, full of “civilized and Romanized” Brythonic Celts, uncivilized and unromanized Saxons and even a few more exotic types.
How do we know he’s a king? So asked the good denizens of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with respect to good King Arthur, to which the response came, “He hasn’t got shit all over him.” Powys’s Arthur cleans up pretty well, bobbing and weaving through the pages of this tome. As the story goes, Powys (1872–1963) brought its 1,600 manuscript pages to his publisher, who turned it down, presumably dismayed at the author’s disregard for the post-World War II paper shortage; it lost 500 pages and was published and promptly forgotten. The present edition restores Powys’s original, which tends toward encyclopedic lectures on alchemy and early British society and suchlike matters while throwing in rashers of violence and even some hints of the naughty bits. The novel, set in 499 CE, concerns the sentimental education of one Porius, son of Prince Einion and Princess Euronyw and thus a cousin removed of said Amherawdr Arthur (get used to Welsh, for the tale is thick with it), with young Porius growing skilled at various things and styles of thinking. His grandpa, Porius Manlius, is a tough old bird who admires such knowledge: “He knows the forest people’s tricks and all their jungles and swamps better than I ever knew our Uriconium textbooks of war!” That Robert Howardian moment aside, readers with a passion for all things Tolkien will find this epic a pleasure, for it is full of Tolkienesque characters and interludes (“Well! There is something about this boy bard’s mystical arrogance that would be bound to irritate an old collector of legends”) and plenty of good old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery stuff, all very well told if told at admittedly great length.
And as for the Saxons? Well, suffice it to say that determined readers will learn a thing or two about all manner of varlets—and some juicy Welsh curses.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58567-366-7
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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