Nine-year-old Meena Kumar's cheeky narrative of her life as the only Punjabi girl in a small English village unfolds through wonderfully evocative description. Tollington, a once-thriving Midlands mining village, is, in the early '70s, on the decline. When the mines shut down, the men are idled while the town's suddenly assertive women form the Ballbearings Committee, a name to designate their employment at the local factory (among other things). A highway threatens to take away part of the village, the grammar school is closing down, skinheads are beginning to loiter in the kiddie park, and suburban sprawl is inching closer. These ominous changes form the background of the inventive Meena's life. She is alternately amused and embarrassed by her family and idolizes the roughest, brassiest girl in town, Anita Rutter. Meena is, much to her parents' chagrin, no angel: She lies, commits minor thefts, and has the bad habit of making vulgar remarks when her prim and proper aunties are around. Each small incident that Meena tells about leads to an arsenal of vividly described related anecdotes before the linear narrative is finally regained, a process that forms an endearing, richly three- dimensional picture of Meena and her family. Meanwhile, the story of the girl's relationship with Anita nicely illuminates the difficult, unspoken politics of childhood friendship. The two girls lead a gang, bully others, and engage in exuberant antics even though, in an increasingly poor and tense England, there is always an ominous undercurrent to events. Anita's black poodle is named ``Nigger,'' a local Indian bank manager is the victim of a racial attack, and Meena's secret love becomes a boot-stomping skinhead. Meena's loss of innocence, and her recognition of her heritage, coincides with her realization that her seemingly harmonious village also harbors violence, hatred, and fear. Syal handles all of this with an expert hand. Far from just another coming-of-age saga, Syal's impressive debut offers a charming yet troubling evocation of recent times.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-56584-372-X
Page Count: 336
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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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