A slow-paced novel with a beautifully portrayed tropical setting.
In Rosa’s (Fractured, 2013, etc.) historical novel, tragedy forces a Puerto Rican teenager to become his family’s sole provider as America’s influence begins to slowly change his native land.
In 1900s Puerto Rico, José Esperanza is an aboriginal Taino. His ancestry dates back to the island’s original native peoples, who were all but destroyed during the Spaniards’ colonization. Now that it’s newly under U.S. rule, Americans are flocking to the island, bringing teachers, missionaries, and profiteers to the rain forest to scrounge out livings. Such scrounging isn’t foreign to José, who spends his days foraging to provide for his family after the death of his father. He finds little aid, as his mother is sick with grief and his eldest brother is a lazy burden. His younger brother and sister are eager to help, but they’re easily distracted by modern commodities and thoughts of life outside Puerto Rico. Along the way, though, José finds new mentors: a zealous American, Montgomery Holland, who, impressed by the boy’s work ethic, employs him on his tobacco farm; Miss Alexandra “Vyris” Paul, a woman feared and respected as a witch, who bears a familial burden much like José’s; an insistent teacher; a stuttering shopkeeper, and others. Rosa paints a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century Puerto Rico, a lively sierra of breathtaking colors and scurrying, slithering, and sometimes-frightening wildlife. José’s drive to help his family as his world changes around him gives the book much of its narrative motion, but its real charm is in its animated portrayal of the island’s jungles and mountains, its turbulent Luquillo River, and its storms’ violence. The novel has a languid storytelling style, and its lengthy conversations and occasional songs give it an anecdotal structure. The only drawback is that its moments of urgency, as when José’s eldest brother is struck with worms, are slowed considerably by expositional digressions. Ultimately, though, the plot is secondary to the rich history and vibrant backdrops.
A slow-paced novel with a beautifully portrayed tropical setting.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1502570932
Page Count: 516
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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