High-flying excitement that’s missing an emotional edge.
In this World War I–era novel, a British soldier confronts how shameful it is to abandon the honor and glory of his country—and maybe his best friend.
As the First World War breaks out, aristocrat and English public school product James Caulfield joins the Royal Flying Corps in France. Debut novelist Hughes depicts how the flying life during that era was mild to say the least: In flimsy B.E.2 biplanes, unarmed pilots and observers, safe from the maelstrom of trench warfare, gazed down from 8,000 feet to sketch the position of the German front line. The Germans do likewise; often, opposing pilots wave to each other. But then, however, the Germans have the cheek to start shooting at their opponents and—outrageously—mount machine guns on their new planes. True war catches up with Caulfield as his comrades, outgunned by their foes, meet grim deaths. In a hospital after being shot down himself, he woos and matches wits with a nurse who turns out to be a strong-minded suffragette. Sent back to England to recuperate, he finds that the politicians and military commanders have no idea what is really happening in France. Back in action, this time with his best friend from high school, Caulfield is shocked to realize that although the average age within the squadron is mid-20s, everyone looks 20 years older. An urgent order comes for a patrol to check on the presence of a far superior plane, the German Eindekker monoplane. Caulfield faces the twin demons of terror and despair as the enemy greets him. The British planes haven’t a hope, but he can’t abandon his best friend, who’s gone missing. Or can he? Hughes succeeds in emphasizing the individual and technical aspects of the war’s main themes, including jingoism, class distinctions, women’s rights, aircraft development, trench warfare and political blundering. But the tale falls short in highlighting, and linking, genuine emotion and believable reasons for individual actions. The historical accuracy mixes uneasily with an awkward attempt to weave a tale of how ordinary men react in moments of crisis.
High-flying excitement that’s missing an emotional edge.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482590241
Page Count: 216
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
