A savage, often unfunny and unfocused adieu to sex—at least as it's practiced in the "permissive society." Jake is a 59-year-old Oxford don (ancient Mediterranean history), and his "thing" is his penis, which has been failing him lately with fat wife Brenda. This problem takes him into the world of flaky psychotherapy. . . and pictorial pornography—since one of the measures recommended by smarmy, boyishly Irish Dr. Rosenberg is the study of dirty pictures "on at least three occasions for a minimum of fifteen minutes at a time. See that this leads to masturbation at least once, preferably twice." Jake finds today's gross porn thoroughly un-erotic; nor is he stimulated much by the rest of Dr. Rosenberg's therapeutic program: "nongenital sensate-focusing," writing out sex fantasies, monitoring sleep-time erections with a "nocturnal mensurator," and enduring the talky-touchy-feely of a "Workshop" encounter group. ("If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's 'Workshop.' After 'Youth,' that is.") But Jake does soon find himself fully functional one surprising night up at Oxford—with an old flame who, though she inspires his quasi-lust, is otherwise a total disappointment: "I mistook her egotism for sparkle. . . her cheap jeering for healthy disrespect. . . ." In fact, Jake realizes how little he cares for women in general—Oxford is being picketed by feminists, Jake's wife takes off with a fatuous friend; and, when Jake's problem is at last diagnosed correctly (a treatable hormone problem), he does a run-down on female foulness and decides to leave well enough alone and remain contentedly impotent. Does all this work—as satire, character comedy, or polemic? Not really. Because Amis' primary targets are a bit dated (in the U.S. anyway) and obvious. Became Jake is an inconsistent alter ego, sometimes a clear mouthpiece (in tirades on today's sexual mores), sometimes a bit of a cartoon himself (in his self-proclaimed chauvinist-pigdom). And because Amis' shot-gun contempt—for illiterate students, bad cafeteria food, etc.—keeps pulling the whole book down to a level of unfocused tetchiness. The Amis prose glitters throughout as shark-toothily as ever, but the Amis bile isn't the geyser it once was-more like a leaky faucet.
Pub Date: June 26, 1980
ISBN: 0140050965
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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