In these two Peruvian allegories, Ortega tries to use caustic humor to convey a nation haunted by government repression, daily terrorism, and communism—but fails when every joke falls flat. The first novella, ``Ayacucho, Goodbye,'' focuses on the plight of a young campesino leader named Alfredo C†nepa. In order to halt his involvement in the socialist peasant uprising, the government publicly accuses him of being a Red terrorist, tortures him, throws him into a ravine, blows his limbs off one at a time with grenades, and buries him in an unmarked grave. But C†nepa can't rest without a proper Christian burial, and that can't happen because so many body parts got lost in the excitement. So the dead man gathers himself up (at least, what's left) and makes for Lima to collect the bones that remain in police custody. He meets lots of people along the way, including fellow reformers who complain (``You're not dead and you're not alive. In the revolutionary struggle there's no room for centrists'') and some cocaine dealers who force him to become a carrier (``You only have one choice...and it's the choice this country faces too: either get rich or die right now''). Readers root for C†nepa in his struggle to reach his final resting place—but less because he deserves it and more because it means an end to the painful dialogue. Fortunately, the next novella, ``Moscow's Gold,'' proves less irritating. Here, a high school student suffers when his best friend Alberto reveals he's a Communist. The narrator wants to think Alberto has been brainwashed and tries to focus on the things they have in common (writing, books, and women), but during high school military training, when the two find themselves on opposite teams, the narrator's true animosity surfaces. Ortega's heavy-handed approach and obsession with satire overshadows these potentially powerful narratives.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-935480-66-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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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