by John Updike ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 1962
As in his previous books, the tension here is in the style and words as well as in the narrative, and the worlds of George Caldwell and his 15 year old son Peter are heightened and illumined by them. This threads the legend of Chiron, the "noblest of all the Centaurs" who begged for death as an atonement for Prometheus' theft of fire, through the cumulative frustrations of the school teacher who knows the fury of living as well as the fury of failure; it reflects the effects on Peter as his orbit, physical and spiritual, closes in and stretches away from his father whom he senses needs a defender and an avenger; it encompasses a few days in which recall of the past and a look into the future inform the present. Wounded by an arrow- as was Chiron, George is further wounded by his principal's apparent humiliations; certain that he is harboring a fatal disease, he is not comforted when X-rays prove him wrong; increasingly ridden by guilt when he and Peter are caught in a near-blizzard, he returns home to the certain freedom of death. Peter's psoriasis, his love for Penny, his alerted sentience to his father's mounting despair are in counterpoint to his father's intense response to reality and equally strong sense of fantasy in which he is the Centaur....Poorhouse and Rabbit have won Updike critical acceptance and designation as the most conspicuously talented younger writer of the decade and there is a warmth here which may well admit and attract a wider audience. The transition of the relationship between father, no longer demigod, and son, comes through with a signal tenderness and implements Updike's established virtues, the glittering and polished prose and the mature alliance of form, function and symbol.
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1962
ISBN: 0394418816
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1962
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by John Updike edited by Christopher Carduff
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PROFILES
by Chinua Achebe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 1958
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
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by Genki Kawamura ; translated by Eric Selland ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2019
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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