A stripped-down novella about a man’s last sailing trip with his terminally ill brother. The narrator, who sounds an awful lot like the author—he’s a middle-aged lawyer named Joe with three children who’s had some success with crime novels that bear a certain resemblance to Felony Murder (1995) and Shoot the Moon (1997)—begins with a foreword claiming that the story he’s about to tell is true, based on the sea log he kept 15 years ago when he joined his younger brother Jack, 39, on a trip aboard the 36-foot sloop Sea Legs to distant Walker Island. Despite his inexperience as a sailor, Joe welcomes Jack’s invitation as a sign that he’s turning away from thoughts of the unspecified fatal disease he’s been diagnosed with to more constructive celebrations of life. And the two men begin their 1500-mile cruise across the Atlantic celebrating with all the calculated midlife abandon of John Cassavettes heroes. They hug each other, they revisit the scenes of their shared youth, they share banalities about first love, they sail through a wicked storm, they enjoy the chance to reverse their typical roles, with Jack playing captain and his older brother the first mate. As Joe says, however, “I’m a great believer in omens,” and his presentation throughout is so weightily metaphoric that few readers will share his surprise when Jack tells him that there is no Walker Island; the spot is just the arbitrary latitude and longitude Jack’s picked to slip off the sloop, leaving Joe to sail back home alone. Frantic to talk his brother out of his plan, and convinced that his legal training and his closeness to his brother make him the ideal person for the job, Joe tries every argument he can think of. In the manner of a seagoing ‘Night, Brother, Jack has unsurprising answers for every one. Though the treatment is more sincere than arresting, most readers will know on their own whether they want to hear the two brothers play out an argument that usually goes on inside one person.
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-18563-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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