Visually stunning even without a single illustration, but the dense writing in this exuberantly weird, rambling tale calls...
An amnesiac with powers that amaze even him crosses a hyper-commercial continent in search of his identity and any other answers he can dig up.
Wandering into the churning world of refugees from a post-earthquake America-of-the-future, a small city hidden under Central Park, the hero of debut novelist Saknussemm’s futurist fable agrees to go by the name that the jumpy band of humans and humanoids gives him: Clearfather. Clearfather is no less exceptional than his hosts. He has a substantial sex organ, as well as an ability to stop attacks by chanting doggerel. He’s got writing scarred into his back, and his white-blond hair reaches the floor. Aretha, the current leader of Clearfather’s rescuers, is a black ex-lawyer, ex-linebacker drag queen whose estranged son is poised to become the first gay world heavyweight boxing champion. Good hostess that she is, Aretha arranges a bio-scan for Clearfather to clear up some of the mysteries about the man, and, indeed, possible ties to a fabled 19th-century genius turn up. In the process, the bio-scanner implants gizmos in Clearfather’s brain that will cause problems for him when he slips away from his hosts and hops a Greyhound Scenicruiser headed for Pittsburgh. Clearwater carries with him a talisman, an ivory ball that evokes memories of a past with a kindly aunt and uncle somewhere in the Dakotas, but the road to that aunt and uncle is long, and his every move is watched and recorded by an industrial conglomerate that seems threatened by his existence. His trip will take him to Texas, a place with strong psychic claims, and to Las Vegas, the theme park on steroids that replaced L.A. when that big corner of the continent slumped into the ocean.
Visually stunning even without a single illustration, but the dense writing in this exuberantly weird, rambling tale calls for ready and willing readers.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2005
ISBN: 0-8129-7416-6
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
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
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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