Charming, wily Luther Kelly (Kelly Blue, 1991, etc.) follows orders from a blackmailing Theodore Roosevelt—orders that will take him around the world via Cuba, South Africa, and the Philippines. Mohandas Gandhi, Lady Randolph Churchill and son, William Howard Taft, Butch Cassidy and Sundance, and Philippine patriot Emilio Aguinaldo are among the real-life figures who cross the path of western scout and extremely reluctant US Army Major Luther ``Yellowstone'' Kelly as he does the bidding of America's most ambitious imperialist—the man he calls ``Teethadore.'' The future president persists in sending Kelly, now in his late 40s, to every trouble spot on earth to check out the possibilities for imperial interests. Kelly and Roosevelt are actually in harness in Cuba, where Kelly, as usual, saves the Rough Rider's bacon. Kelly has one politically unrelated and thoroughly profitable escapade, a trek with his San Francisco Chinese tailor to recover a pure jade boulder, the profits from which set Kelly up for life. Kelly sets out to escort the fabulous rock to China but is sidetracked by a typhoon in mid-Pacific and winds up in the middle of the Boer War- -where he runs into his old South African flame, his son Dirk (of whose existence he had been unaware), Young Winston, and Young Winston's mum. Lady Randolph is now Mrs. Cornwallis-West and busy as she can be running a hospital ship. Of course, she's not too busy to minister to the attractive Mr. Kelly for the second time in her life. And Mr. Kelly is certainly not too busy for Lucretia Sams, the gorgeous adulteress he meets on duty in the Philippines.... The ironic ``aw-shucks'' prose style that never lets up will not be to everyone's taste, but Kelly's ribald adventures can usually wear down the resistance of even the most cynical reader as history is revised with a vengeance.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-517-58285-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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