An intricate and overstuffed novel that’s long on complexity and absurdity.
An astronomer and a data analyst end up at cross purposes after they’re recruited for a possible terrorist group in Tyler’s debut novel.
Nicolas Nesbitt, astronomer and Los Angeles resident, is out of a job. Fired from the planetarium where he spent the last few years, Nesbitt gets off to a surprising start in his new life when he encounters a woman on a purple bicycle covering his truck with bumper stickers. Meanwhile, Gary Saar, a data analyst for the Global Information Bureau (GIB), is shopping for groceries and contemplating the nature of his existence, while the Reverend Jimmy Pea, wildly successful televangelist, is experiencing both a spiritual epiphany and a slide into insanity. Part of the reverend’s experience becomes a high priority for the GIB when a series of videos detailing leaks of highly sensitive information goes online, and the struggle for control of the world’s most vital asset—information—plays out in unusual and, occasionally, humorously absurd ways. Part absurdist satire, part surrealist romp, Tyler’s narrative spans a wide range of topics, from data science to ontology, and the author manages to keep the conceptual pieces together in a story that largely hangs together on its own terms. Tyler’s language is rich and complex, and hits a stylized tone that suits the material, although it sometimes veers into excess and descriptive sentences that display a love of language for its own sake rather than for building exposition. (One sentence begins: “If it is simply the propensity of technology to disastrously outpace any culture appropriate for controlling it, and if this is the explanation for the surprisingly unchatty cosmos…”) The characters provide forward momentum rather than examples of well-rounded development; except for occasional flashes of insight into Jimmy Pea, none are presented as believable people, but given the tone and material Tyler is working with, that is more of a feature than a bug. Although fans of traditional narratives may wish to look elsewhere, readers who appreciate some of the more abstruse works of writers such as Philip K. Dick will find much to appreciate in Tyler’s work.
An intricate and overstuffed novel that’s long on complexity and absurdity.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73453-110-7
Page Count: 179
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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