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CANNERY ROW

Name: CANNERY ROW
Author: John Steinbeck
ISBN: 0140187375

by John Steinbeck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 1944

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I loved it — and to my mind — it fits admirably an immediate need in our season's lists, — the need for a richly patterned story spun out of another layer of that peculiar underworld with which Steinbeck is at his best. Once again, as in Tortilla Flat, he makes no effort to stress "social significance". To be sure, one can strain at his underlying meanings and say that such people should not exist in today's plenty — but no one can argue that they wouldn't exist again tomorrow if eliminated today. Flotsam and jetsam of humanity, — the gang of boys who could get jobs but didn't except when emergency demanded — and then quit when the emergency passed. Lee's felicitous acquiescence to their thinly veiled urging that they become caretakers of his newly acquired shack; their neighbors in the deserted lot; Doc, high mogul of the marine laboratory, doctor to the neighborhood on occasion, beloved by all; and the others who made up the dregs of Cannery Row. The story builds up to first one and then another climax, as the boys plan a party for Doc. There's humor — and pathos — and sheer good story telling as the incidents unfold. The plot is tenuous, held together by the characters. But Steinbeck succeeds in making them human, likable, out of drawing but never in caricature. And one feels that to him, too, they are part of the flavor of a folk legend of today.

Pub Date: Jan. 2, 1944

ISBN: 0140187375

Page Count: 228

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1944

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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
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by Harper Lee

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.