A wandering narrative causes this story to win a few battles, but not the war.
In Kuwahara’s debut, two rival clans fight for control of feudal Japan in a series of battles that ensnares multiple generations.
The samurai of the Taira family come to power in the 12th century after helping the emperor beat back a bloody uprising led by the Genji clan. But Taira ascendancy only inspires more violent disputes—barely three years after the first battle, the surviving members of the Genji family once more conspire to overthrow the ruling government. Though this effort fails, it sets in motion a decades-long conflict that slowly undermines the Taira family’s power and briefly leads to a divided country with two emperors, each propped up by one of the rival families. At her best, Kuwahara paints a surprisingly dark portrait of the samurai—they resort to sneak attacks at night, they steal from villagers to survive and they execute the families of their defeated foes in order to prevent future retaliation. For the most part, though, the novel reads like a dispassionate, disorganized history book. Countless characters come and go with little more detail than a name, while battle scenes stumble in clunky prose, stale dialogue and meandering digressions. A few memorable moments slice through the clamor of inconsequential skirmishes—a defeated soldier orders his own daughter killed before the enemy can destroy her, or the exiled samurai who vainly proclaims himself king of his empty island. Focusing on a few key battles and devoting more depth to character and plot development would not only have sharpened the narrative, but could have more clearly illustrated the full consequence of war, the perilous family business.
A wandering narrative causes this story to win a few battles, but not the war.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-1434986924
Page Count: 328
Publisher: RoseDog
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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