A plodding first novel, hollow at its center.
The education of a prig as an American in Taiwan evolves from self-righteous missionary to compassionate stand-in husband.
Meet Vincent Saunders, man on a mission. The 24-year-old Presbyterian from a small town in Illinois, fluent in Mandarin, is charged with establishing a ministry in Toulio, Taiwan. Free English lessons followed by Bible study: that’s the deal. The “Jesus teacher” immediately targets his landlady’s teenaged son but passes on his housemate, Alec from Scotland. Alec is Vincent’s antithesis, moody, profane and a serious hash smoker (when the drug makes him sick, Vincent wishes him a full measure of pain as a cure). But then lonely Vincent strays from the straight and narrow. Schoolgirl Trudy charms him with a fumbled kiss, and soon the two are making love five nights a week. Vincent’s missionary work falters. His commitment to Christ evaporates. But given that his whole life has been anchored by faith, it just isn’t credible that he could shuck it off like an old skin, without agonizing. Meanwhile, word of his trysts has reached Trudy’s brother, who beats Vincent to a pulp. He’ll have to leave town, but he can’t face the folks back home. Fortunately, there’s an alternative: Mr.Gwa, an affluent businessman, needs a foreigner for a sham marriage to a mainland beauty he wants brought to Taiwan; Vincent will get ten grand. Since Kai-ling lives in a desert town in China’s remote northwest, the story now turns into a travelogue, with Vincent the filter for impressions of China in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. His experiences induce the epiphany that “you could navigate your life without knowing,” just loving its mystery. Arriving in Urumchi, Vincent finds that Gwa’s desert rose has her own agenda, and attention shifts to her homely sister Jia-ling. Through the twists and turns of the novel’s final third, Vincent is all heart, looking out for the vulnerable Jia-ling and visiting Alec, now a convicted drug-smuggler, in prison.
A plodding first novel, hollow at its center.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-4634-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules...
Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.
Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade," says the companionable narrator. For the Count, that way of life ultimately becomes less about aristocratic airs and privilege than generosity and devotion. Spread across four decades, this is in all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. Though Stalin and Khrushchev make their presences felt, Towles largely treats politics as a dark, distant shadow. The chill of the political events occurring outside the Metropol is certainly felt, but for the Count and his friends, the passage of time is "like the turn of a kaleidoscope." Not for nothing is Casablanca his favorite film. This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can't begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind.
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules of Civility(2011).Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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