Serious modern fiction has only one subject: the difficulty of writing serious modern fiction." So says Fowles' alter-ego here. And, if that idea was an undercurrent in The French Lieutenant's Woman (the time-shift narrative tricks) and Daniel Martin (the writer-as-tortured-hero), Fowles is now offering it in undiluted form: this new novel chiefly consists of existential dialogues between a writer and his Muse—along with some Pirandello-ish gamesplaying and an erotic battle-of-the-sexes. Miles Green wakes up in a hospital bed, apparently afflicted with amnesia; soon a lovely doctor and a sexy nurse are matter-of-factly administering therapeutic sex to the outraged patient. What's going on? Is this a farce à la Thomas Berger (with dialogue by Pinter)? Well, not exactly. Because the doctor is suddenly transformed into Erato, Muse of love-poetry and fiction: the hospital scene, you see, was just one of Miles' literary notions. So Miles and his tetchy, pouting Muse then launch into some comic/philosophical discussions, with time-outs for brawling and bedding. The feminist Muse attacks Miles' work; she demands respect ("All I ask is some minimal recognition of my metaphysical status vis-à -vis yours"); she recalls her early days with the Nine Muses ("It was worse than being the Rolling Stones"); she makes suggestions about Miles' career; she confesses to having written the Odyssey. Miles responds with lectures on the modern novel. And, throughout, the tussle between writer and Muse is interwoven with the sexual struggle between Man and Woman: teasing, spats, fights, and—after some more transformation games—happy lovemaking. Fowles, of course, executes his "mantissa" (O.E.D., "an addition of comparatively small importance") with vast erudition and lovely prose bits. But the less characteristic comedy is uneven—from sublime to sophomoric. (Erato confuses lung with Erica Jong.) And, however richly executed, this remains an overextended intellectual vaudeville-sketch—alternately fascinating and tedious, with distinctly special, limited appeal.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1982
ISBN: 0316290270
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1982
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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