Her prose style like a buzz saw shearing through layers of consciousness, Koja (Strange Angels, 1994, etc.) continues her rampage through the land of eros, again framing her penchant for trios and S&M in a bleak but ever-so-trendy downtown art scene. Narrator Jess, a happy-go-lucky temp worker, and his childlike hairdressing soulmate Sophie think they have it all just because they have each other: They play their game to the hilt, making out anywhere, anytime—and so much the better with an audience. Their lusty play maintains an earthy innocence, however, until they meet cool, sophisticated, exquisite Lena, who gives them a new word for their sport—``kink''—and with whom they immediately bond. What starts as a friendship with sexual overtones changes character when Lena moves in with them; her allure ties Jess in knots until he gains the object of his desire, and a menage Ö trois is born. But Sophie and Lena are a hot item, too, and so poor Jess is blindsided when—so overwhelmed by his passion that he wants Sophie out of the picture (and believing that Lena is in agreement)—he forces the issue and becomes the odd man out. Obsessed with Lena even after her betrayal, he compulsively tracks down her acquaintances, from space-cadet sculptor Edie to filmmaker Annemarie, and finally the powerful, aging Saul, who starred with Lena in Annemarie's XXX- rated ``art film'' Peril, gaining an ugly but consistent picture of her romantic conquests and mastery of the three-way from her wrecks of ex-mates. Eventually his new knowledge—along with a helping hand from Sophie—enables him to trade in his obsession for the hope of a more balanced relationship. There's immense power here in the style and titillating subject matter but also a chilling sense that one is being manipulated, all the right buttons being pushed, from the first page down to the sap-happy ending.
Pub Date: June 6, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-4391-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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