Not much happens in Hermitage, for all its length. But readers should enjoy eavesdropping, especially on the philosopher’s...
A love letter of sorts to the leading “philosophe” of the Enlightenment, as well as an urbane satire on the pretensions and absurdities of academe.
This tenth (and last) novel by the accomplished writer-critic, who died last year at the age of 68, consists of two alternating plots, one set in 1773, the other 220 years later. In the 1993 story, seven latter-day Canterbury pilgrims (including its narrator, an unnamed novelist and teacher who might as well be Bradbury himself) are gathered together for a scholarly enterprise known as the Diderot Project—and travel to Stockholm, then St. Petersburg. The varied group includes an overripe diva, a carpenter, a diplomat, and a skirt-chasing deconstructionist: representatives of Denis Diderot’s wide range of interests. Juxtaposed against their misadventures (which begin on the rundown Vladimir Ilich, the ship conveying them eastward) is the novelist’s imagined reconstruction of Diderot’s own journey to Russia, made at the behest of Empress Catherine the Great (who wants his library)—and of their deliciously witty conversations (presented in play form), in which the philosopher’s passionate libertarian views make little impression on the monarch’s serene political pragmatism. Bradbury attempts parallel discourses in the contemporary sections—but his oblique lampoons of academic double-talk and Boris Yeltsin’s beleaguered tenure are unexceptional (they’re in fact the kind of thing he did better in The History Man, 1975, and the Booker-nominated Rates of Exchange, 1983). Still, the best parts of this awfully overstuffed novel are its most discursive moments. Bradbury had a versatile, interesting mind, and there’s something quite moving about his reverence for the transmission of a broad general culture and his evident belief that the power of an agile, restless mind like Diderot’s can have influence far beyond the reach of political expediency.
Not much happens in Hermitage, for all its length. But readers should enjoy eavesdropping, especially on the philosopher’s attempts to “civilize” the imperturbable Empress. Bradbury’s grave and reverend (at times downright farcical) swan song is one of his most assured and entertaining performances.Pub Date: April 16, 2001
ISBN: 1-58567-131-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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