One final gem of wisdom: “It is always important to know when something has reached its end.” The Zahir ends on page 298....
On the road again—to spiritual and sexual fulfillment, as promised by the megabestselling Brazilian author of The Alchemist .
Coelho’s latest (not to be distinguished from any of its predecessors) is the “story” of a rich and famous author of inspirational fiction (to whom the critics are really mean) whose wife, a distinguished war correspondent, inexplicably disappears, presumably in the company of her young translator, who hails from the Mysterious East. The narrator broods for 200 or so pages, repeatedly re-summarizes his life and opinions, charms every woman he meets, debates the ethics of spousal appropriation when the translator (Mikhail) reappears, then—following countless pages of rhetorical foreplay—undertakes a healing pilgrimage to Mikhail’s territory (Kazakhstan). The wife he’s seeking, you see, has become his “Zahir”—in Islamic thought, “something which, once touched or seen, can never be forgotten, and which gradually so fills our thoughts that we are driven to madness.” (Like this book, perhaps?) Little happens en route, though upon arriving at a railway station the narrator perceives that “the tracks seemed to be saying something about my marriage, and about all marriages.” (Wait! Yes, I hear them. They’re saying “drivel, drivel, drivel.”) Abstractions, bromides and oversimplifications abound, as Coelho’s scarcely fictionalized narrator holds forth on freedom, love, the “Divine Energy” through which love flows and the enigma of self-realization (“Before I could find her, I must find myself”). Coelho’s plain prose does go down easily, and is no more a challenge to the intellect than Jell-o is to the esophagus. Costa dutifully renders Coelho’s pronouncements as blandness incarnate, politely declining to correct recurring syntactical barbarisms (e.g., “No one should ever ask themselves that”).
One final gem of wisdom: “It is always important to know when something has reached its end.” The Zahir ends on page 298. You’re welcome.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-082521-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
A striking literary fantasy informed by Arden's deep knowledge of and affection for this time and place.
A satisfying conclusion to a trilogy set in medieval times in the area on the verge of becoming Russia.
In a luxuriously detailed yet briskly suspenseful follow-up to The Bear and the Nightingale (2017) and The Girl in the Tower (2018), Arden's historically based fantasy follows heroic Vasya—a young woman with a strong connection to the spirits of the place where she lives—as she attempts to save her family and her country from evil forces. Because the novel starts with a bang where the preceding volume left off, with Moscow nearly burned to a crisp by a Firebird imperfectly controlled by Vasya, readers are advised to backtrack to the two earlier books rather than attempt to sort out all the characters and backstory on the fly. Among the humans are Vasya's sister, Olga, compromised by her desire for wealth and position; her brother, Sasha, a monk with a taste for the military life; Grand Prince Dmitrii; and corrupt priest Konstantin. Among the inhuman are the warring brothers Morozko, the winter-king with whom Vasya conducts a conflicted romance, and Medved, a demon addicted to chaos. Arden keeps the narrative fresh by sending Vasya questing into fantastic realms, each with its own demanding set of rules and its own alluring or forbidding geography, and by introducing new “chyerti,” demons or spirits, including an officious little mushroom spirit who indiscriminately plies Vasya with fungi, some edible and some distinctly not. Fans of Russian mythology will be pleased to find that Baba Yaga puts in a cameo appearance to straighten out some of the complicated genealogy. The trilogy leads up to the Battle of Kulikovo, which many consider the beginning of a united Russia. Arden neatly establishes parallels between Vasya's internal struggles, between attachment and freedom or the human world and the spiritual one, for example, and those taking place in the world around her.
A striking literary fantasy informed by Arden's deep knowledge of and affection for this time and place.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-88599-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A girl comes of age in '50's South Carolina fighting the label ``trash'' and the violent advances of her stepfather: an overly familiar story as Allison (Trash, 1988) handles the material in a surprisingly nostalgic way. When narrator Ruth Ann Boatwright (nicknamed Bone) is born to 15-year-old unmarried Anney, the word ``ILLEGITIMATE'' is stamped in big red letters on the birth certificate; for years, Anney will stubbornly try to get a new document without the glaring stigma. She will also try to make a decent home for her two daughters, marrying Glen Waddell, who—the black sheep of a prominent local family—admires the heavy-drinking, brawling Boatwright men. Glen adores Anney but the Boatwrights have their reservations: ``the boy could turn like whiskey in a bad barrel.'' Indeed, not only does he have trouble holding a job but soon makes Bone a scapegoat for his frustrations: she suffers beatings and sexual molestation, keeping silent in order not to spoil her mother's hard-won happiness. Though the family triangle is the dramatic center of the novel, the narrative meanders through the story of the Boatwright clan. Bone reflects on her strong and independent (if hard-treated) aunts and appreciates family strength, love, and loyalty while recognizing that the outside world sees the Boatwrights as antisocial trash. Compassionate if not very compelling; after the often searing power of Allison's short stories, she seems not to have claimed her voice so much as tamed it.
Pub Date: April 10, 1992
ISBN: 0-525-93425-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
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