Paula’s English-language debut is almost impossible to put down: moody, atmospheric, at times cinematic, her novel is...
A young woman returns home five years after her best friend’s suicide.
When they were 16, Emilia’s best friend, Andrea, committed suicide. Five years have passed. Now, Emilia is living in Buenos Aires when Andrea’s parents invite her back to their rural Patagonian town for a ceremony to scatter Andrea’s ashes. This is the first book by Paula, an accomplished Argentinian actor, director, and writer, to be translated into English. The novel is narrated by Emilia, who addresses herself directly to Andrea (referring to “you,” “your parents,” “your house,” and so on), and it is a lucid and vibrant account. In Buenos Aires, Andrea’s death had come to seem distant, even abstract; back in their hometown, however, Emilia is faced with the truth of the death and its permanence. But she is also faced with the other particulars of the life she left behind: her father with his new wife and new kids (Emilia’s mother left her family when she was a child); and Emilia’s former lover has moved on, as well. Emilia is a chatty narrator, and her account is crammed with pop-culture references, slang, mild cursing, and the kind of repetitive, obsessive thought processes familiar to anyone who's lived through their early 20s. You can practically hear her talking out loud. Here she is soon after her arrival at Andrea’s house: “Anyway, so dinner with your parents was great, albeit with me performing acrobatics the entire time in order to avoid or not broach certain topics. Basically they asked about my life in Buenos Aires, if I liked it, if I’d adapted, who I was hanging out with there…they asked if I was happy with my job, and here I edited a little bit and told them just about the good stuff,” and on, and on. It’s an engaging, frequently moving story, and its only fault is that we don’t hear more about Andrea and the specifics of her death. In contrast, there’s a great deal of focus on Julián, Emilia’s ex-boyfriend, which eventually becomes tiresome.
Paula’s English-language debut is almost impossible to put down: moody, atmospheric, at times cinematic, her novel is indicative of a fresh and fiery talent with, hopefully, more to come.Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55861-430-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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