A fascinating premise and themes that can still speak to us today.
A retelling of Socrates’ story, set in a dystopian America in the 1830s.
In early-19th-century America, society is wild about the Greeks. Philadelphia, the capital, styles itself the Athens of America, and Greek names—or approximations—are very common. Thus, the young narrator is named Palleias, and the Socrates figure is “Teacher Scotes,” who behaves just the way Socrates did, courting the same dangers (such as purportedly corrupting the young, for example). One of Scotes’ acolytes is named Xephon (see Xenophon). But the Founding Fathers are long gone, and these epigones took the wrong lesson from the Greeks. This “democracy” is a nasty parody; it’s populism run amok. Whatever the people decide in a great assembly on any given day becomes the law, no matter how short-sighted or unjust. Has debt become burdensome? Well, abolish it, and too bad about the rich lenders! Palleias’ father, Antonyn, is a highly respected representative, one of those who certify the people’s will. He was once Scotes’ student but is now his enemy and forbids Palleias from associating with the man. All this comes to a head when Antonyn arranges to have Scotes arrested and charged with corrupting the youth, a capital offense. A core theme that is wonderfully handled is the inner torment of young Palleias, who’s drawn to Scotes but is also a dutiful son. The book has long passages of—what else?—Socratic dialogue, although Holland replicates that type of dialogue well, even if only the most committed students of philosophy might follow all of it (“But the people are a cauldron, and if boil they will, they still require time to heat”). It’s also a bit hard to believe that these citizens could be quite so fickle and self-serving. Palleias, who later assumes the mantle of Plato, talks some sense (and necessary shame) into his fellow compatriots in a rousing speech toward the end, even if they still have much work to do.
A fascinating premise and themes that can still speak to us today.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9798891383104
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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