An engaging sea yarn with more verisimilitude, if less romance, than O’Brian readers expect.
Comparisons to Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin saga are inevitable, but Stockwin’s debut, the first in a planned naval series covering approximately the same era, focuses on the common seamen rather than on the officers. No musical duets in the captain’s chambers here.
Stockwin, a retired lieutenant commander in the British Royal Navy, introduces as his unlikely hero Thomas Kydd, a 20-year-old wig-maker pressed into service in 1793 just as Britain is drawn into war against postrevolutionary France. Overwhelmed by life on the 98-gun battleship Duke William, landlubber Kydd is befriended, first by an older sailor on his watch who dies in a tragic if typical accident in the sails and then by the mysterious Nicholas Renzi, a man of wealth in self-exile as a common seaman who will undoubtedly reappear in later installments. As Kydd gradually gains his sea legs, the reader learns with him the intricate workings of the boat and gets to know through his eyes the men above and below deck: the inexperienced captain who improves with time, an able but cruel officer, potential mutineers inspired by radical political leanings, hardened seamen hoping to land a bounty that will make them rich. Kydd’s first storm at sea is rendered with great drama that is enhanced when the Duke William crew attempts to aid a ship in distress—with unexpected results. Kydd participates in a landing party on the French coast, ending up behind enemy lines, and in a sea battle. Warfare is depicted with gruesome, at times breath-stopping detail but little glory. As Kydd says, “It was the uncertainty, the knowledge that out there was an enemy who was doing his best to kill him . . . To his shame his knees began to tremble again.” Kydd almost makes some disastrous choices, but in the end his seamanship, his patriotic loyalty, and a bit of luck save the day.
An engaging sea yarn with more verisimilitude, if less romance, than O’Brian readers expect.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7432-1458-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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