Shalev’s third English translation (Esau, 1994) is set in post-WWII Palestine. Here, the author’s usual village legend-spinning turns out to be half stuffing and half roast goose. Illegitimate young Zayde Rabinovitch has three alleged fathers—and each contributes something or other to the boy’s physical appearance. Widower Moshe Rabinovitch, who was reared by his mother as a yellow-haired girl until he was 12 and nature could no longer be denied, provided Zayde with those blond tresses (and later with a farm); Jacob Sheinfeld, who once raised canaries—and who was abandoned by his beautiful wife Rebecca because of his infatuated pursuit of Zayde’s single mother, Judith—gave him droopy shoulders, a fine house richly furnished, and empty birdcages; and cattle-dealer Globerman, as coarse and sensual as Fyodor Karamazov, bestowed upon him huge feet and plenty of money. Zayde, who suffers under his name partly because it means “grandfather,” is born to Judith in her 11th year of living alone, her ex-soldier husband having deserted her and fled to America. Each of Zayde’s three would-be male progenitors declares himself to be the child’s actual father. The high point arrives with the appearance of an Italian ghost whose wondrous ability to imitate human forms, voices, and actions seems to be leading to a fulfilling end (which may reveal Zayde’s physical parentage) until a blow from the gods robs us of any resolution—any emerging from character, that is. The story, as retold to or by Zayde during the course of four meals from the hand of Jacob over three decades, gasps with incidental lore and pithy sayings, which may or may not fit the plot but which prick dash hopes that Shalev will ever come to grips with his tale. Even so, the village mythologizing and the proverbs (“He couldn’t say the names of wine, but his frying pan laughed and his knife danced in his hand—) will warm the hearts of many.
Pub Date: March 22, 1999
ISBN: 0-88001-635-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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