An intriguing exploration of the contemporary consciousness of an alienated, urban Chinese woman for whom current history...
The inner life of a highly passive heroine, as seen against the turbulence of her country’s recent past—in a first English translation from an acclaimed Chinese writer.
Ni Niuniu first appears as an adult woman who has secluded herself in a carefully groomed garden, eschewing contact with others and pursuing the purity of her musings and making small personal drawings. As if to explain the enigma of herself, Ni tells us that when she was a small girl in a sturdily “dysfunctional” family, her father was emotionally remote and sometimes violent, while her mother lovingly nourished her daughter’s heart and soul. In grade school, Ni suffers the torments of Mr. Ti, who will first molest her and then declare his unfettered love during an exotic dinner. But at this stage Ni’s primary sensual interests are in women, their breasts and softness, which are offered to her tenderly by, among others, her girlhood friend Yi Qui and neighbor Ho. The erotic encounter with Mr. Ti introduces her not only to the sexuality of men but to lust as well: an experience she rather enjoys. As she reaches college, she befriends Yin Nan, and, during the years up to and preceding Tian’anmen Square, she’s suffers through a handful of traumas. Her mother dies of heart disease; beloved Ho dies in an apartment fire; and her first authentic love, with Yin Nan, is quickly concluded with his escape from China to Germany. While Howard-Gibbon’s translation is smooth and readable, there remains, perhaps from the original, an allusive poeticism that lends the prose a kind of indistinct, hazy generality—a haziness that, conjoined here with Ni’s already poetic spirit, deprives her character of sharp definition. Still, the persisting reader will find her insights and aphorisms engaging and occasionally provocative.
An intriguing exploration of the contemporary consciousness of an alienated, urban Chinese woman for whom current history matters less than the reliable comforts of love, nature, and solitude.Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-231-13196-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2004
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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