After winning high praise for her memoir (The Hacienda, 1998), novelist St. Aubin de Ter†n (Nocturne, 1993, etc.) turns to Italian history and the Garibaldi years to create this subtle, endearing fantasy in which a common soldier transforms himself into a man of means and builds a dream palace on the Umbrian countryside—all for the sake of love. The transformation begins with a nasty trick, a mock execution of the young freedom fighter by Papal forces, who then lead him back to jail and his cellmate, Colonel Vitelli, from whom the stone carver’s apprentice absorbs the manners and learning of the upper classes like a sponge. By the time of the pair’s liberation, the youth is so far removed from his peasant origins that he gives himself a new name—after first impersonating Vitelli long enough to spare the colonel’s life. But the makeover is far more than just a new name, Gabriele del Campo, and a new manner: in prison Gabriele built a palace, room by room, in his mind, both as a bulwark against despair and as proof of his devotion to Donna Donatella, the landowner’s daughter he’d glimpsed but once while doing his stonework in her family’s chapel. Taking to Venice’s damp streets and murky ways, where he can perfect his guise as a gentleman, Gabriele starts his mission. Gambling with a hand made sure by the knowledge that it is in the service of pure love brings him wealth beyond measure and the ability to survive even the most dreaded gambling den in the city—where losers end up sleeping with the fish. Then he returns to Umbria to begin construction of his dream, but as years pass and there is no sign of his beloved, he falls into doubt and despair, until the return of his mentor Vitelli renews his faith. Exquisite in its least details, enchanting in its larger vision of love’s labor: a rare jewel of a fable that both engages the senses and tugs at the heart.
Pub Date: June 28, 1999
ISBN: 0-88001-662-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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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