For all its heft, a nimble piece of entertainment and an insightful historical recreation.
Braccia tenders Cicero’s testament to his son about his thwarted ambitions in the Roman Senate.
The author has clearly done his homework into the life and times of Cicero, and even readers with reservations about the great orator’s beliefs and tactics will appreciate the honest hand he brings to the proceedings. Cicero was largely a decent man, given to private philanthropy rather than state handouts and love for the relative freedom of the senate. Readers may equally appreciate Braccia’s comfortably unhurried yet lively pace as he moves the story through reams of detail and enough three-barreled Roman names to choke a horse. The author lays bare the complexities of the Roman political process–with its power plays, privilege, influence pedaling, sedition, enmity and unscrupulous scheming–and it is easy to slip into the story and take sides. Cicero’s maturity in the Roman Senate came during the rise of Julius Caesar, a wonderfully intriguing time, and Cicero is not above indecision and vacillation, which gives him a gathering humanity. The author draws Caesar with the same clarity and passion–a brilliant soldier and demagogue, busy muzzling the Senate and Forum and just as busy in bed with almost every senator’s wife. (A tip of the hat goes to Braccia for handling the sex scenes with both color and restraint.) Cicero’s gradual estrangement from the optimates is sensibly unfurled, and his distaste for the ambitious, avaricious Caesar is ample: “I could not countenance his power because it was acquired through war on his fellow citizens; and the exercise of that power was not with the Senate and the People, but over them” An abundance of forcefully effective nuggets, such as the Parthians pouring molten gold down Crassus’ throat, gives the tale the drama it deserves.
For all its heft, a nimble piece of entertainment and an insightful historical recreation.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4490-4341-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
