This first English translation of a novel left uncompleted at the author’s death is also the first edition to include all its partially inchoate, though consistently fascinating content. Martin du Gard (1881—1958) remains the least internationally appreciated of France’s major modern novelists, despite the 1937 Nobel prize awarded chiefly in recognition of his great eight-volume saga, The World of the Thibaults (1922—40). Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort, which he worked on periodically for the last 18 years of his life, was an autumnal magnum opus: a large-scale portrayal of his country’s transformations during and after WWI, as observed by its meditative protagonist and narrator, Maumort, a soldier, gentleman, and scholar. Maumort intuits from the new century’s destructive momentum a human flaw he diagnoses as the futility of the individual conscience, which cannot prevent someone who wishes to do good from instead countenancing, and thus perpetuating, evil. The author’s leisurely narrative encompasses exhaustive analyses of Maumort’s privileged childhood relationships with his cousin Guy (a wonderful study in adolescent egoism) and their troubled tutor; a disillusioning love affair with an exotic older woman followed by a bitterly unhappy marriage; combat experiences in North Africa and Europe; and the old warrior’s last days in retirement, as German armies once again march on his homeland. Maumort’s memoirs are buttressed (and interestingly qualified) by his letters to a beloved friend and by a concluding gathering of random reflections and aphorisms on various subjects that evoke Pascal’s PensÇes and perhaps even Montaigne’s essays as precedents. This is a novel that demands intense, perhaps repeated reading. Yet its doggedly heroic presentation of a tortured mind and soul hell-bent on understanding itself adds up, eventually, to a reading experience like no other. Martin du Gard’s great admirer Albert Camus called the older novelist “our perpetual contemporary.” This unfinished symphony of self-exploration is both close kin to its acknowledged models, Tolstoy and Proust, and a work of startling originality and innovation.
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2000
ISBN: 0-679-43397-X
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
© Copyright 2026 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.
