A very clear rendering of a notoriously difficult poet.
Celan makes for difficult reading (Glottal Stop, see above). But he justifies the obduracy of his verse by pointing out the danger inherent to any dealing with language: “It had to pass through it’s own answerlessness, pass through frightful muting, pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech.” Felstiner succeeds admirably in taking this thought seriously, and his translations give equal attention to the silences and empty spaces that haunt the exacting language of these pieces. The poetry itself begins in snow, death, and darkness; Celan’s early work interrogates the death of his parents at Nazi hands and seeks compensation in discovering what he later called “an addressable Thou . . . an addressable reality.” His final poems, which become progressively more hermetic and disjunctive, enact a minimalism that makes Dickinson look Dickensian by comparison (and Celan was an accomplished translator of Amherst’s Muse). The late series of poems that he wrote after his visit to Israel in 1969 are particularly interesting, as they stage the interaction between an intensely personal and highly oblique aesthetic with the brute political realities of a nation at war, when slogans threaten to drown out all lyrics. Though Felstiner is a scrupulous translator, he eschews the pedantry of always favoring accuracy over (his best guess at) intent. His translation of Celan’s most famous work (“Deathfugue”) is carefully experimental: taking a cue from the musical reference in the title, Felstiner intertwines his translation with the original German. A subtle progression of substitutions changes the poem’s leitmotif (“Death is a master from Deutschland”) back into Celan’s own (“der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland”). The mingling of voices is a nice metaphor for translation, and also provides a standard that Felstiner, at his best, achieves.
A very clear rendering of a notoriously difficult poet.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-393-04999-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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