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RAMZA

Name: RAMZA
Author: Out el Kouloub
ISBN: 0-8156-2618-5

by Out el Kouloub ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1994

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Out el Kouloub achieves a modest success by importing some of the feel of an 18th-century British novel into her rendering of harem life in traditional Egypt. Egypt's Out el Kouloub based Ramza, written and published in French in 1958, on her own harem experience, and she portrays these forbidden women's quarters in Middle Eastern households in all their paradox. Sequestered from the outside world, the harem women create their own exclusive world where oral culture thrives: They exchange stories to entertain, console, and bond with one another. Ramza, the novel's heroine, breaks both male and female norms by venturing into her father's study (in the men's part of the house) where she learns to read and write. Although time is unspecified, the novel is set in the era of British influence over Egypt (18821952), and Ramza's education is distinctly European. Influenced by John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Ramza, not surprisingly, grows into a young woman of surging independence who is constantly threatened by the undertow of her powerful emotions. After the death of her bridegroom on the eve of an arranged marriage, Ramza falls in love with Maher. Forbidden by her father from marrying Maher because of his social status, Ramza resolves to escape the harem and elope. Her pursuit of desire and fulfillment at all costs gives her an appealing intensity, but Out el Kouloub (Khul-Khaal, not reviewed) often mars the characterization with melodrama. During Maher and Ramza's assignation in a Bedouin tent one can almost hear ``Midnight at the Oasis'' wafting through the flaps: ``Maher pulled me into his arms and his lips touched mine. At that moment I felt I was committing the greatest folly of my life, but I could not stop myself.'' Unique by virtue of its subject and resourceful treatment, not the author's craft.

Pub Date: July 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-8156-2618-5

Page Count: 222

Publisher: Syracuse Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.