by Roy M. Griffis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2011
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In the midst of World War I, a relationship develops between an English lieutenant and a young Russian nurse—a surprising tenderness against the backdrop of war.
With elements reminiscent of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Griffis’ (The Big Bang: Volume One of The Lonesome George Chronicles, 2008) first book of a two-part series, subtitled “The Old World,” features English lieutenant Robert meeting 18-year-old Russian nurse Charlotte Braninov as she tends to a severely wounded soldier at a Casualty Clearing Station during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. While she considers Robert chivalrous from the outset, she initially tries to ignore any thoughts of romance, given their setting; she knows her focus must be on tending to the injured soldiers. But when their paths cross again shortly after at the base hospital where they are both stationed to work, several seemingly small incidents reveal Robert’s true character to Charlotte, and a romance develops. Their courtship is not without challenges, though; the hospital is under constant threat of attack, and Robert’s career has all but stalled. His assignment at the hospital is a form of punishment for an incident on the battlefield. Griffis provides rich detail about the action, both in war scenes and in the calmer interactions between Robert and Charlotte, but the reader must often piece together the story, as at times the nonlinear storytelling is disorienting with each of the five parts of the book taking place in a different location and often in different timeframes. It isn’t always clear at the outset whether the scene is set in present day or in previous weeks or even years. Yet, the level of detail helps to overcome this difficulty. While the focus is heavily plot-oriented rather than deep explorations of the characters, the reader gets a glimpse into the characters’ beliefs and values in the way they interact with each other and in how they carry out their official duties. Still, the reader is left wanting to know more about the characters and, as a result, the story feels incomplete. Readers must wait until Book Two to complete the picture, but with likable characters, spending more time in the Old World is an appealing prospect.
Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466398047
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by James Clavell ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 23, 1975
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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