This is British writer Coe's fourth novel but his first to appear in the US, and it's easy to see why American publishers have hesitated to introduce him here. Funny and ambitious, his scathing social satire of England in the 1980s relies on a familiarity with domestic politics, as well as with British popular culture. The very subtitle of this panoramic narrative derives from a third-rate British horror film from the early '60s, starring the sexy Shirley Eaton, whose curvaceousness plays an important role in the fantasy lives of more than one character in this rollicking novel. Michael Owen, for one, the author of two critically respected novels, finds himself (circa 1982) engaged to write the family history of the Winshaws, a wealthy and powerful clan described by one repentant member as ``the meanest, greediest, cruellest bunch of back-stabbing, penny-pinching bastards who ever crawled across the face of the earth.'' The family is behind every excess and degradation of the '80s: the overblown art market, the rise of tabloid journalism, the decline of small farms, the privatization of health care, the unscrupulous dealing in arms to Iraq, and the creation of paper wealth characteristic of the decade. Measuring the consequences of their evil in personal terms, Owen finds a Winshaw behind every private misery and tragedy. This, and a revelation about his own past, renders him more or less mute for two years. His only relief comes from masturbating to the image of Shirley Eaton on his VCR. What he doesn't discover until well into this surprisingly neat narrative is just how much his life is intertwined with this horrible family, and that the mad, institutionalized Tabitha Winshaw, with her accusations of truly horrific Winshaw betrayals, is absolutely correct. Something of a Labourite Tom Wolfe, Coe seems a bit naive politically, with his monolithic view of evil. Nevertheless, he has just the right narrative brio to pull off this wild, satisfying novel.
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43385-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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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