First translation into English of a lyrical, mysterious coming-of-age story: the initial volume (originally published in 1936) of a celebrated Flemish writer's autobiographical trilogy. (The succeeding volumes are scheduled to come out over the next few seasons.) Gilliams (190082), who was also a highly acclaimed poet, re- creates with an artful, sensuous immediacy the experiences and emotions of his sentient narrator-protagonist, 12-year-old Elias— an only child whose parents take him to live on a family estate that also houses a bewildering array of variously troubled relatives. The boy is enlisted in family theatricals memorializing beloved other sons and daughters—and finds that though he may tag along with and learn from good-natured Uncle Augustin, he might better keep a respectful distance from humorless, high-strung Aunt Zenobia and embittered martinet Aunt Theodora. Meanwhile, he's fascinated by mercurial Aunt Henrietta, whose unstable temperament seems to forecast a madness Elias associates with adulthood. He finds only partial escape from such madness in highly charged relationships with adventurous neighborhood girl Hermione and older cousin Aloysius, a moody free spirit whose unhappy collision with family discipline gives Elias another foretaste of his own future. Little else happens. A storm uproots a tree. A dog sickens and must be put out of its misery. Elias's dreamy solipsism is frequently interrupted by rudely physical real sensations (a foot stepping on his fingers, a form entering his bedroom silently to pile extra blankets around his feet). His confident assertion that ``all things obey my imagination'' is thus challenged by the repeated intrusions of an exterior other world. The boy's unpredictable vacillations in and out of the life around him give an oddly surrealistic flow and feel to the fragmentary portrayal of his extended familya portrayal that we receive through the prism of his vision. Some will find little more here than an overextended, somewhat enervated prose poem. Others will eagerly await more revelations of Elias's intriguingly divided nature.
Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1995
ISBN: 1-55713-206-2
Page Count: 115
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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