Poet/playwright’s Lee’s first novel, set in contemporary West Africa and loosely reminiscent of Heart of Darkness. Lee’s Marlow is Ben Chase, a not particularly religious American who has been working for a Christian relief agency, building solar ovens out of tinfoil in which he cooks frozen turkeys flown in from the States. Not surprisingly, the project failsñthe agency eventually loses interest in it—and Ben finds himself marooned in the capitol with a bedraggled group of expatriates. He hammers out a few articles for Reuters and, finding himself in a bit of political trouble, signs on with a well-digger for United Christian Relief—David Mather, Lee’s Kurtz. But unlike in Conrad, this turns out to be a journey not so much into the heart of darkness as into modern farce. Mather has evidence of a lost tribe called the Maji in the desert north country and mounts an expedition to see if they are the fabled Lost Tribe of Israel and, moreover, if they have maintained Christian traditions now lost to the world. Mather is like Kurtz, however, in that he is larger than life: He becomes a savior to a city dying of some mysterious virus when he brings them water. Unlike Kurtz, he’s a likable man, an incurable romantic who can nonetheless react forcefully to the thugs and bandits met along the way. The Maji don’t turn out to be anything like he’d hoped, and they may be about to kill him when a great sandstorm arrives and does the job for them. By a miracle—a noble old man has a premonition of it—a Ben Chase escapes to tell the tale. Conrad by way of Joyce Cary, with a dash of Graham Greene: the tale of a fool told by a fool. Still, diverting and unusual, from Lee’s mad expatriates to his often desperate but bemused Africans. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 15, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-18695-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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