Issues of war, peace and reality are overshadowed by the thoroughly depressing figure of Korin, “the personification of...
Burrow into the dense prose of this novel—the Hungarian author’s second U.S. publication (following The Melancholy of Resistance, 2000)—about an archivist on a mission and you’ll find a story-within-a-story.
There are no periods or paragraph breaks (though there are plenty of commas) in the story of 44-year-old György Korin, a Hungarian archivist, an ungainly loner with bat ears. Korin’s life changes when he discovers a mysterious manuscript tucked inside a family file. He converts all his possessions into cash, which he sews inside his overcoat. His goal is to fly to New York (because, evidently, it’s the center of the world), deliver the manuscript to eternity by posting it on the Internet and then kill himself. Korin is at least borderline crazy but with enough energy to reach New York, though not without problems; he is almost murdered by a gang of feral children outside Budapest, and detained at JFK since he has no luggage and speaks no English. He is rescued by a Hungarian interpreter who offers him lodging. Next, Krasznahorkai crosscuts between Korin’s life in Manhattan and the manuscript he is laboriously entering into the computer. It tells the story of four angelic men shipwrecked in ancient Crete. They travel through time, and Europe, looking for peace but finding only war; there is no way out. Korin has internalized them; they have taken over his life (shades of Pirandello); their quest is his quest, though an abstract one compared with Korin’s New York situation. His landlord and his woman have been murdered in the apartment; the guy had been dealing drugs, and Korin must leave town fast. Back in Switzerland, he buys a gun and shoots himself after delivering an obscure diatribe against a “horrible heterogeneous bunch of people.”
Issues of war, peace and reality are overshadowed by the thoroughly depressing figure of Korin, “the personification of defeat.”Pub Date: April 28, 2006
ISBN: 0-8112-1609-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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