In 1972, the mature David Kepesh told us how he turned into The Breast, but here are his earlier, less symbolic guises—child of the Borscht Belt, scholar of Chekhov and Kafka, and wrestler with temptation. Believing that "my desire is desire, it is not to be belittled or despised," young David uses his literature-in-London grant to become a "visiting fellow in erotic daredevilry" in the Swedish company of anything-goes Birgitta and secretly shy Elisabeth. Saddled with the guilt of having corrupted Elisabeth, David moves on and West—to "hopeless misalliance" with wife Helen, "runner-up for Queen of Tibet," a dramatic heroine radiantly ruined by her long affair with a colonial tycoon (who has her imprisoned when she leaves David for further Far-East adventuressing). An inertial move back East—to Long Island classes, family ties, and analysis: "I cannot maintain an erection, Dr. Klinger. I cannot maintain a smile, for that matter." And finally schoolteacher Claire, who, if Birgitta represented a lust-indulging "more," represents, on a trip to Europe and in a summer-rented farmhouse, the comforts of "enough." But is enough enough? And will it last? Even forgetting The Breast, probably not, for David Kepesh is a direct descendant of Neil Klugman and Alexander Portnoy, doomed to kvtech his lonely way out of any possible happiness. But the kvetching here is muted (as it sometimes was in My Life as a Man), as if Roth is desperately demanding that we take this problem of desire more seriously than he seemed to take it himself in Portnoy or The Breast. And, if this gravity makes David's self-pity and narcissism somewhat indigestible, it also allows Roth to find a quieter music in the Jewish word-rhythms that have blared raucously before. The portraits of Kepesh's food-foisting, cancer-stricken mother, of his widowed father (and fund-raising buddy Mr. Barbatnik), of aging urban academics—Roth achieves an unprecedented, tough, nostalgic tenderness. And David's musings on Kafka and Chekhov, though they may not manage to shed light on or ennoble his own groinal Angst, make him a more substantial schlemiel than his precursors. From the waist down, then—the same old story, sans laughs; but, in head and heart—a subdued and seductive journey.
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1977
ISBN: 0679749004
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1977
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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