A well-crafted first novel strains to affect as it tells of three generations of Japanese-Americans whose lives have been distorted by family and history. Four narrators, Eric and his sister Mariko, grandmother Kaori and her son Jack, chronicle the story of the Okada clan from their arrival in California in the early 1900s. Events move from that point to the recent present and from California to Hawaii, where Mariko now tries to learn about something of the past from her mother Emi. Shortly before WWII, Emi left the family as a teenager, became pregnant with Eric, gave him up for adoption, and then, as the Okadas were about to be sent to an internment camp in Colorado, returned home pregnant again. Emi’s mother, Kaori, retrieved Eric from his adoptive parents, while her brother Will, brutally treated by his own father and later to die as a war hero, beat up Emi and accused her of being a whore. Meantime, her uncle Jack, his loyalties divided, stood by helplessly. Nothing especially good will happen to the Okadas, whose sorry plight never quite evokes sympathy, either because they overreact or, seemingly for plot purposes, remain bent on behaving stupidly. When Mariko, now in her 50s, learns that Eric is her brother, she better understands why she feels alienated from husband Roger; fearful of abandonment; and guilty about a secret abortion. Eric, reared by Kaori, became a convicted criminal in adolescence and has felt rejected ever since Emi chose Mariko over him when she finally married. Jack. Jack also fought in WWII, and, torn between his marriage and his family, chose the latter, while his mother Kaori regretted not keeping the promise she—d made to Emi to stay with her no matter what. Eventually, the two siblings are reunited, and Mariko confesses her past to Roger, but the mood is somber rather than celebratory. The story makes heroic efforts to come alive and engage but, despite the fine prose, just doesn—t.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-019370-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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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