An often entertaining but somewhat opaque and arbitrarily fantastical tale of love, war, and death set in Eastern Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, from the accomplished Serbian author whose highly praised game-oriented fiction includes Dictionary of the Khazars (1988) and Landscape Painted with Tea (1990). Subtitled “A Tarot Novel of Divination,” the book in fact is accompanied by a pack of Tarot cards, which the reader may, if desired, use to read in rearranged order the book’s 21 chapters (whose contents correspond to the three groups of seven cards that comprise the Tarot’s “Major Arcana”). This gamesmanship resembles that of Julio Cortaz†r’s amusingly postmodernist Hopscotch (another obvious precursor is The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino, a writer Pavi— in many ways resembles). The story is a painstakingly colorful romance concerning the varied education of Sofronije Opujic, a young cavalryman of mixed Serbian and other European blood, the scion of a prosperous merchant family, and a beguiling mix of real and magical-real qualities: He’s dashingly handsome, polylingual, an expert horseman, incontestably masculine—though possessed of pronounced feminine sensitivities—and a sexual prodigy who lives in a perpetual state of arousal. His service in Napoleon’s army is complicated by a mysterious prophecy detailing his soldier father’s forthcoming “three deaths”; by Sofronije’s love for the daughter of his father’s enemy (and victim); and by a subsequent Romeo and Juliet—like rivalry between their respective families. These and many related matters are presented in a haphazard confection that’s short on narrative clarity and clogged with discursive foreshadowings (numerology is prominent) and with such (and merely) whimsical inventions as a misbegotten “devil,” a virgin who learns she can fly, and a talented fellatrix who “plays” Haydn on her lover’s sexual organ. Portentous allusions to and echoes of the Iliad and a graceful translation aside, this is an ostentatious magic-carpet ride that doesn’t really go anywhere. Pavi—’s earlier books are much superior.
Pub Date: June 5, 1998
ISBN: 0-8023-1323-X
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Dufour
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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