While Leppin’s style is not as spare as Kafka’s, the nightmare he chronicles reminds us of our own connection to what Leppin...
A frighteningly unsentimental novel of human degradation with echoes of both Kafka and Dostoyevsky.
Written in the 1930s (the author died in 1945), the novel anatomizes the humiliation and decline of Klaudius Blaugast in the seamy underside of Prague. The story begins with the title character accidentally meeting Schobotzki, an old school acquaintance, in the streets of Prague. Schobotzki, a charismatic but nasty piece of work (and later termed “the most corrupt, the most evil…the Devil incarnate”), startles Blaugast by inquiring about his interest in “the science of decay” and in “catastrophes.” It turns out the decay he refers to is primarily sexual, for Schobotzki introduces Blaugast to Wanda, a prostitute specializing in degradation and debasement—not that Blaugast, a self-described “pilgrim in the mire,” needs tutoring in these areas. We’re introduced to memories from Blaugast’s early sexual education, out of which he comes to the staggering revelation that “guilt, guilt, guilt was life, guilt that rose up, delirious, in convulsions, to break down, tortured.” Blaugast’s journey borders on despair, for on some level he’s looking for God and love, both of whom seem to have deserted him in his “depravity and wickedness.” Blaugast’s abasement eventually becomes an obsession, so much so that to the disgust of Wanda he quits his job and thus deprives her of one reason for her leechlike attachment. Johanna, a girl from Wanda’s “stable” (and with a proverbial heart of gold), steps into the breech, a Sonja figure who, in taking care of Blaugast, finds herself “slowly submerged into a realm far removed from the mundane—a realm she had hungered for her entire life.” It is a spiritual rather than a carnal union with Blaugast.
While Leppin’s style is not as spare as Kafka’s, the nightmare he chronicles reminds us of our own connection to what Leppin calls the “Ur-forest,” the dark realm of our repressed selves.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-80-86264-23-3
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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