In this artfully written German import, KrÅger (The Man in the Tower, 1993, etc.) turns a satiric eye on an 80-year-old man whose esteemed career has been built on a lie. Starting in 1942, a graduate student named Richard at the Leipzig Ethnological Institute spent two grueling years in the jungles of Brazil researching his thesis. But he merely went through the motions. In truth, he ``was not interested in Indians, those degenerate humans, and their propensity for alcoholism and quarreling.'' Naturally, this racist attitude would have destroyed his entire project if it weren't for a German Jew named Leo Himmelfarb whom he hired as his guide. Not only did Leo chart their course and translate the native language; but he made friends with the villagers and painstakingly recorded every encounter, folk tale, song, and ritual in an oilcloth journal. But Richard's pride kept him from learning anything from a man who could have been his mentor, and he felt more relief than sorrow when Leo took ill and he was forced to leave him behind in the jungle. After several years with no news from Leo, Richard assumed he was dead and published the journal as his own. His entire reputation in the literary and scientific community is based on this work. So, when Leo turns up 50 years later, Richard suffers to think that he could lose his stature. As it turns out, Leo seeks not to expose him but to finally teach him the lessons he should have learned when he was young. The book's major flaw is Richard, who lapses into incomprehensible pedantry during moments of introspection: ``Reality has vanished and what we perceive as reality is only an ironic transfer sticker that is being held up to a running camera by a politician abandoned by all good German spirits.'' Still, KrÅger manages, without a trace of sentimentality, to show a dying man take inventory of a failed life.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8076-1363-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Braziller
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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