The work of Donoso—the driest, most finicky, and bookish of the Latin American Boom-generation writers—not only seems like a footnote to the lusher talents of Garc°a M†rquez and Vargas Llosa but often, as here, to be about footnotes itself. The two novellas here have a curatorial or library-ish mood about them. In the first, Taratuta, a writer becomes intrigued (for no discernible reason other than that such intrigue will provide us with this tale) with the appearance in Russian Revolution history of a redheaded terrorist named Taratuta, an intimate of Lenin's who was instrumental in disposing of a dowry that would be used to finance the revolution. The writer by luck finds a descendant of this Taratuta—a young boor who bears his heritage with ignorance and complication both—Donoso's rather tame point being, presumably, that history wants nothing more than to shrug itself off as fast as it can and assume other guises. There's a stab at comedy here- -wild-goose-chasing after what's buried under obscurity, and then discovering new obscurity—which is echoed in the second piece, Still Life With Pipe. A pedantic young man becomes obsessed with a forgotten Chilean painter—only to find that art lives not only in memory but in perpetual reduplication. Juiceless exercises.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-03436-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
Back to a Jurassic Park sideshow for another immensely entertaining adventure, this fashioned from the loose ends of Crichton's 1990 bestseller. Six years after the lethal rampage that closed the primordial zoo offshore Costa Rica, there are reports of strange beasts in widely separated Central American venues. Intrigued by the rumors, Richard Levine, a brilliant but arrogant paleontologist, goes in search of what he hopes will prove a lost world. Aided by state-of- the-art equipment, Levine finds a likely Costa Rican outpostbut quickly comes to grief, having disregarded the warnings of mathematician Ian Malcolm (the sequel's only holdover character). Malcolm and engineer Doc Thorne organize a rescue mission whose ranks include mechanical whiz Eddie Carr and Sarah Harding, a biologist doing fieldwork with predatory mammals in East Africa. The party of four is unexpectedly augmented by two children, Kelly Curtis, a 13-year-old "brainer," and Arby Benton, a black computer genius, age 11. Once on the coastal island, the deliverance crew soon links up with an unchastened Levine and locates the hush-hush genetics lab complex used to stock the ill- fated Jurassic Park with triceratops, tyrannosaurs, velociraptors, etc. Meanwhile, a mad amoral scientist and his own group, in pursuit of extinct creatures for biotech experiments, have also landed on the mysterious island. As it turns out, the prehistoric fauna is hostile to outsiders, and so the good guys as well as their malefic counterparts spend considerable time running through the triple-canopy jungle in justifiable terror. The far-from-dumb brutes exact a gruesomely heavy toll before the infinitely resourceful white-hat interlopers make their final breakout. Pell-mell action and hairbreadth escapes, plus periodic commentary on the uses and abuses of science: the admirable Crichton keeps the pot boiling throughout.
Pub Date: Sept. 28, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-41946-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.
This is a book which courts the dangers of two extremes.
It can be taken not seriously enough or, more likely, critical climate considered, too seriously. Kesey's first novel is narrated by a half-Indian schizophrenic who has withdrawn completely by feigning deaf-muteness. It is set in a mental ward ruled by Big Nurse—a monumental matriarch who keeps her men in line by some highly original disciplinary measures: Nursey doesn't spank, but oh that electric shock treatment! Into the ward swaggers McMurphy, a lusty gambling man with white whales on his shorts and the psychology of unmarried nurses down to a science. He leads the men on to a series of major victories, including the substitution of recent issues of Nugget and Playboy for some dated McCall's. The fatuity of hospital utilitarianism, that alcohol-swathed brand of idiocy responsible for the custom of waking patients from a deep sleep in order to administer barbiturates, is countered by McMurphy's simple, articulate, logic. This is a thoroughly enthralling, brilliantly tempered novel, peopled by at least two unforgettable characters. (Big Nurse is custom tailored for a busty Eileen Heckert.)
Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1962
ISBN: 0451163966
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1961
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
APPRECIATIONS
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