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PORIUS

Name: PORIUS
Author: John Cowper Powys
ISBN: 978-1-58567-366-7

by John Cowper Powys & edited by Judith Bond and Morine Krisdóttir ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2007

And as for the Saxons? Well, suffice it to say that determined readers will learn a thing or two about all manner of...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.