Another straw in the wind suggesting a new trend in novels of spiritual import. Leslie Greener's No Time To Look Back (Viking) —published last Spring — was a significant and moving novel in this genre. Now comes the new Nevil Shute, showing advance in power over a rather fumbling handling of the spiritual impinging on the material in his No High- — almost, in this new book, a successful achievement. In both books, flying plays a vital part; in both, the mechanic is the central figure rather than the pilot. Here he uses the time honored Servant in The House motif. As Tom Cutter tells the story, the reader identifies himself with Cutter recurrently glimpsing divinity in the chief mechanic, half-caste, British-Chinese, more Atlantic than British in his spiritual values. Cutter didn't want to believe his friend and associate in the burgeoning commercial flying venture in the Persian Gulf area was anything but human. But he knew that his spiritual message to the mechanics in the air strips all through the East had made better men as well as better craftsmen of them all. He knew that the man himself was looked upon as Prophet and Teacher, by Buddhists, Muslims, Hindoos, and those countless fringe religions of the East. He knew that through him taboos of race and creed were being overcome. He knew the legend was growing, though the man himself did not seek it. He knew that the conservative British were afraid — and he moved Shaklin on to Bali; then the Dutch, too, became fearful, as planeloads of pilgrims sought his blessing. Finally, when fatal illness belied his divinity, the message he carried still dominated, and with his death the question, though still insoluble, hung in the air — and the legend, with its valued concomitant of worship through skills, grew and strengthened. Perhaps this is Shute's most important book, though not on the level of straight story. At times difficult, at times technical, at times distasteful to those who pigeonhole religion as apart from daily life- there is nonetheless that emphasis on seeking spiritual values which is a trend in modern fiction not to be overlooked.
Pub Date: Jan. 31, 1950
ISBN: 1741211557
Page Count: 435
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1950
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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