From an accomplished poet and second-novelist (The Soloist, 1986): a page-turning yarn about magic and time-travel set in modern Manhattan. Again, Christopher offers little poetry but lots of lean, action-packed prose. A renowned magician disappears in the middle of his act, leaving friends and family to fear that he's been trapped in another dimension by Starwood, his bitter rival. Meanwhile, Veronica, the magician's daughter and assistant, sets in motion a complex series of mystical events in order for her father to return to the here and now, using alchemy, Tibetan mysticism, Chinese philosophy, and old-fashioned magic to try to rescue him from oblivion. Enemy Starwood, however, has several tricks up his own sorcerer's sleeve and will stop at nothing to keep Veronica's father confined to history and space. Thus Veronica recruits Leo, the hapless narrator, who's accidentally stumbled into her circle of blind mystics, star-powered musicians, invisible dogs, and mind- reading, astral-projecting relatives. Leo's quickly drawn into Veronica's deadly maneuverings and soon finds himself at Sir Walter Raleigh's execution, then pursued through time by various mystical creatures. Exciting as all this is, the reader increasingly laments the absence of palpably human characters and responses: The entire time that Leo is being tricked, hoodwinked, and duped into a variety of life-threatening, multidimensional experiences, he never comments on or questions the genuinely fantastic adventures he's taking part in, and no one else, either, reacts in any way other than by whipping out a new magic potion or changeling dagger. When the battle-royal that ends atop the Empire State Building finally rolls around, there's little reason to root for any of the cosmic gladiators. High-class, Victorian-style fantasy of the fourth dimension spoiled, unfortunately, by one-dimensional characters.
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-31471-X
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
