Adeptly explores the consequences of pride and respect for women against the backdrop of Renaissance Italy.
The heir to a gondola empire rejects his birthright but comes full circle in this fascinating glimpse into late-Renaissance Venice by art historian–turned-novelist Morelli (Made in Italy, 2008).
Twenty-two-year-old Luca Vianello believes his left-handedness to be his greatest curse, until the death of his beloved mother right after she gives birth. Luca’s rage at seeing his father—whom he blames for his mother’s frequent, ill-fated pregnancies—at work so soon after her death results in a tragic fire at his family’s squero (a gondola boatyard). Fleeing his home, his betrothed and his trade, Luca ends up on the streets of Venice. Unable to fully escape his heritage, he finds a position as a gondolier. Eventually, in a life-altering move, he becomes private boatman to Trevisan, a successful artist. Luca is introduced—first in a painting, then in the flesh—to the beautiful Giuliana Zanchi, with whom he becomes infatuated. She hires him to perform side jobs for her, and the two eventually become friends. While restoring an old gondola of Trevisan’s that was made in his family’s squero, Luca, and eventually Trevisan, recognizes that he is in his own right a craftsman, a true artist. But when Luca becomes aware that Giuliana is in danger, he risks everything to save her. Vulnerable, honorable Luca will tug at readers’ heartstrings, while author Morelli’s evocative descriptions of late-16th-century Venice and its inhabitants alternately captivate and nauseate, with accurate depictions of personal and public hygiene. The paucity of dialogue does little to slow the novel’s pace, and long paragraphs of Luca’s self-reflection can be surprisingly interesting. Under Morelli’s deft pen, the gondola- and oar-making trades are elevated to the historic art forms they really were.
Adeptly explores the consequences of pride and respect for women against the backdrop of Renaissance Italy.Pub Date: March 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989367103
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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