Brilliant, like all of Krasznahorkai’s books—and just as challenging, though well worth the effort required.
Krasznahorkai’s latest postmodern experiment explores small-town discontents in post-unification eastern Germany.
“Your voice is so fucking insipid, Florian, are you some Jew or what?” So bellows “the Boss,” the head of a clutch of neo-Nazis in a Thuringian backwater smack in the heart of the new Germany. Apart from idolizing Hitler, the Boss is also a hectoring concertmaster who owns a cleaning company (its ominous all-caps slogan “ALLES WIRD REIN, ALL WILL BE CLEAN”). It’s good for business but enraging all the same that someone is spray-painting sites associated with Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the Boss’ many obsessions, with graffiti signed “WOLF HEAD.” The subject of the Boss’ meltdown is Florian Herscht, a gentle and dim giant who is fascinated by particle physics, even if he doesn’t understand it, and harbors fears of dentists, tattoos, and the end of the world. About the latter he regularly writes to German premier Angela Merkel, warning of the impending apocalypse. Reminiscent of the similarly dim but good-hearted giant of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum, Florian strains to understand what is happening in tiny Kana, now populated by immigrants from Eastern Europe and from even as far away as Vietnam. While the Boss rails against his neighbor Ringer, “a Jew, meaning he was part of the conspiracy,” the wolves are indeed returning, as are magical birds and other signs and portents of the very apocalypse that Florian worries about. In a long book with only one terminal punctuation mark, not easy to read but graced by a certain poetry, Krasznahorkai allegorizes globalism and nationalism, gets in digs at complacent burgers and ardent environmentalists, and illustrates, through Florian and other characters, how thinly the veneer of civilization lies atop a thick crust of savagery.
Brilliant, like all of Krasznahorkai’s books—and just as challenging, though well worth the effort required.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780811231534
Page Count: 512
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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