The rich content gets slightly buried in the complex structure of this ambitious novel.
A family history unfolds in the form of a screenplay spanning three generations and several countries.
Huston (Infrared, 2012, etc.) opens the novel in a hospital room where Milo Noirlac, a renowned screenwriter, is dying. Milo’s co-writer and director, Paul Schwarz, visits, and they begin writing their final screenplay. The present action of the novel remains in this one room as it fills with stories from the past. Structurally, the novel is highly complex. The screenplay follows three subplots, each with its own protagonist: Milo’s grandfather, his mother and Milo himself. Early on, Paul states his philosophy of film: “For the first ten minutes, the audience is infinitely tolerant and will accept whatever you choose to flash at them.” Chapter 1 of the novel embraces this concept, forcing the reader to weave the threads together and jump through time and space, from Ireland to Canada and back again. The language is lyrical and takes full advantage of the novel-as-screenplay form. Time passes in a series of montage images layered with a character’s voice-over. With Milo’s mother, the camera takes on her point of view so that the reader is always in her body, experiencing her trauma. The ugliness of the scenes, which depict rape, child abuse and bloody revolution, contrasts sharply with the beauty of the prose in a rich and engaging way. In each subplot, however, there are scenes that feel melodramatic and heavy-handed. Paul, speaking to Milo, provides metacommentary on the screenplay throughout their writing and often points out these over-the-top moments as well as weak dialogue and scenes they will need to revise or cut. In this way, the novel allows for some flaws in the story, though they are still frustrating to encounter. In addition to the already complicated three-pronged plot structure, each chapter is titled with the name and definition of a capoeira term. The significance of capoeira is not immediately clear. This becomes yet another layer added to the narrative, which begins to feel weighed down under the pressure of too many guiding structures.
The rich content gets slightly buried in the complex structure of this ambitious novel.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2271-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Black Cat/Grove
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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