Rich in local color and history, yet never quite reaches an affecting emotional pitch.
From Ethiopian-born memoirist Nega (Notes from the Hyena’s Belly, 2000): a first novel about star-crossed lovers that’s also a tart fictional history of Ethiopia in the twilight years of its ancient feudal kingdom, soon to be coveted by Europeans.
Mezlekia’s tale of forbidden love in unsettled times is replete with the retelling of old legends and acts of magical realism. Spirits appear in whirls of dust, creatures like the Abettors decide wars, and magical potions revive the dying. The tone, though, is often ironic and the observations contemporary as Nega describes germ warfare and weapons similar to missiles, as well as a fanatical priest bent on rooting out heresy. Luminously evoking a country where drought is endemic, the landscape austere, and food in short supply, the narrator, a warrior, Teferi—“the feared one”—relates the consequences of the birth of Aster, a daughter, to Count Ashenafi. Aster is an exceptional child who is tutored by the kingdom’s best scholars and guarded jealously by her protective father, but in her teens, even so, she falls in love with court comedian and jester, the clever slave, young Gudu. The two start writing a book, but their relationship is discovered and Gudu must leave the court. This love story is played out against a background of battles and ruthless regimes as the fanatical priest Reverend Yimam starts an inquisition to root out heresy in the court. While Aster dreams of escaping to join Gudu, he himself joins a band of rebels intent on defeating Yimam. The entire country is soon a battlefield as cities are besieged and sacked, and treachery is everywhere as fighters change sides and Gudu is taken prisoner—and tortured. When her father tries to stop Aster from going to Gudu’s aid, she finds a way out that even he is powerless to prevent.
Rich in local color and history, yet never quite reaches an affecting emotional pitch.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-28701-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
In the contest of Most Winning Combination, it would be hard to beat grumpy Ove and his hidden, generous heart.
Originally published in Sweden, this charming debut novel by Backman should find a ready audience with English-language readers.
The book opens helpfully with the following characterizations about its protagonist: “Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab. He’s the kind of man who points at people he doesn’t like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman’s torch.” What the book takes its time revealing is that this dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon has a heart of solid gold. Readers will see the basic setup coming a mile away, but Backman does a crafty job revealing the full vein of precious metal beneath Ove’s ribs, glint by glint. Ove’s history trickles out in alternating chapters—a bleak set of circumstances that smacks an honorable, hardworking boy around time and again, proving that, even by early adulthood, he comes by his grumpy nature honestly. It’s a woman who turns his life around the first time: sweet and lively Sonja, who becomes his wife and balances his pessimism with optimism and warmth. By 59, he's in a place of despair yet again, and it’s a woman who turns him around a second time: spirited, knowing Parvaneh, who moves with her husband and children into the terraced house next door and forces Ove to engage with the world. The back story chapters have a simple, fablelike quality, while the current-day chapters are episodic and, at times, hysterically funny. In both instances, the narration can veer toward the preachy or overly pat, but wry descriptions, excellent pacing and the juxtaposition of Ove’s attitude with his deeds add plenty of punch to balance out any pathos.
In the contest of Most Winning Combination, it would be hard to beat grumpy Ove and his hidden, generous heart.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3801-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
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