The novel is overstuffed with food, which tends to water down what could be a strong story of a young woman fighting for her...
Unmarried at 35, chubby, and self-critical, Aruna Rai spends more time observing her life than living it. She pines after a man who is not interested in her, works at a job she is not passionate about, and soothes herself with the tastes of Indonesian cuisine.
An epidemiologist from Jakarta, Aruna travels with her colleague Farish across Indonesia to review cases of humans hospitalized with avian flu. She invites along two friends who will fill off-duty hours by sampling local cuisine with her. Bono, a chef, has a list of places and foods they must try. Nadezhda, a gorgeous food and lifestyle writer, has attitude to spare and philosophies to share. After speaking to hospital personnel and the patients’ families, Aruna suspects the cases of human bird flu are being faked. (But why? The story never quite pins it down definitively.) When her boss pulls her off the assignment, the four companions decide to complete the trip anyway. After all, there is so much food yet to be sampled. Despite long discussions about bird flu and food, the book is not really about either but rather a patchwork-quilt character study of Aruna. The reader-cum-therapist analyzes Aruna’s dreams (most chapters begin with one), hears her inner angst over Nadezhda’s beauty and her own plainness (“like champagne and popcorn”), and sees her fear of being alone (while at the same time she shuts herself off from people)—and tastes every bite of food she does. Aruna is likable, honest, bright, and full of wry humor. But as for the book having a strong arc, a steadily moving plot, a surprising climax before denouement...not so much.
The novel is overstuffed with food, which tends to water down what could be a strong story of a young woman fighting for her integrity despite setbacks in her social life and in the workplace. The strength of this novel is the heroine herself, the girl next door, a loyal friend, and a funny philosopher.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3734-5
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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