Still, its vivid characters and page-turning plot make it a more than commendable first novel.
Cultural exchange breeds more misunderstanding than enlightenment in this ambitious debut novel from the author of the collection Lucky Girls (2003).
When its title character Yuan Zhao arrives from China in Beverly Hills, the differing reactions of his host family ironically underscore his uncertain status as an artist subjected to political persecution (for his involvement with a subversive arts magazine and proscribed performance art). Fortyish matron “Cece” (Cecelia) warmly welcomes an opportunity to lavish on a deserving guest affection declined by husband Gordon (a psychology professor and bestselling author), with whom she languishes in a sexless marriage. Their teenagers Olivia (an ardent student of dance) and Max (a possibly suicidal underachieving malcontent) scarcely register any life beyond their own introverted orbits. Gordon’s brother Phil, a globetrotting egotist and unworthy lover of superior women (including the guilty Cece) masquerades as a hotshot scriptwriter while doing what he does best: ruin other people’s lives. The character seemingly best suited to understand and communicate with “the dissident,” Gordon’s sister Joan, is a successful novelist for whom human relationships are more a source of material than a sphere she’ll consent to inhabit. The complex interrelations of these variously beautiful, privileged people form a fascinating counterpoint to the moving story of Yuan Zhao’s embattled apprenticeship and largely wasted life (for, despite the respect of people who believe his existence more meaningful than their own, he struggles with the nagging knowledge that “There was a time . . . when I might have made sacrifices for art, and chose not to.” The book is significantly flawed, by awkwardly handled exposition and several uncomfortably close echoes of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.
Still, its vivid characters and page-turning plot make it a more than commendable first novel.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-075871-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
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
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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