A provoking book: The reader will not escape untouched.
Past misdeeds afflict generations of a wealthy Midwestern family.
Somerville’s latest concerns Ben Hanson, who, after several years out west wasting a fortune and serving a short prison term, returns to his small hometown of St. Helens, Wis. Ben’s Uncle Denny has died, and he has accepted his wealthy parents’ offer to fix up and occupy the house until it sells. Whereas the archetypal drifter is amoral, Ben is the postmodern type, crippled by self-awareness, paralyzed by the damage existence inevitably causes. What Ben has, and apparently needs, is an opportunity to babysit himself. Haunted by his cousin Wayne’s death that may or may not have been suicide, determined to learn Wayne’s secret, Ben is unable to name the larger conflict that makes his life a sequence of failures he cannot even dignify as attempts. Ben seeks out Lauren Sheehan, a girl he may or may not have had a crush on in high school. But Laura has suffered in the interim, and their courtship is inevitable if halting. While Ben is the protagonist, the narrative baton is passed between several principals. Somerville lets his characters talk and talk: The idioms of the tedious are captured with remarkable fidelity. But even the most patient reader may tire as these inarticulate souls tangle with their complicated feelings. It becomes a matter of taste: How do we react to overhearing a conversation while trapped on public transportation? Do we want to interrupt, to knock in some sense or offer advice, or do we listen, by turns angered and fascinated by tragedies only halfheartedly avoided?
A provoking book: The reader will not escape untouched.Pub Date: June 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-12931-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
