Godden (Great Grandfather's House, 1993, etc.) is known for sentimental, old-fashioned morality tales, and this absurdity is no exception. Pippa is the youngest and newest member of a British ballet troupe traveling to Venice, where she and the other dancers attract the attention of young Italian men, who speak in charming broken English. Unfortunately, while Godden apparently has a great, blind love for Venice and includes lengthy passages of local color (``the pageant of the piazza, its colonnades, the domes''), she has failed to bone up on some basic facts (i.e., the Italian version of the name Paul is Paolo, not ``Paulo''). From the opening pages, it is perfectly clear where this one is headed, particularly since Godden occasionally pops in a section from the side of Nicolï, a young Venetian gondolier. Pippa's trials—for a young woman must always have trials in this type of book—are musty. Godden tries to wed the primmer and homophobic values of an earlier era with contemporary characters. Pippa struggles to balance her admiration for the ballet mistress Angharad with Angharad's mysterious dislike for her best friend Juliet, whom Angharad calls ``common and...a tart,'' and to combine singing with Nicolï's fledgling band with her dance rehearsals and performances. She also befriends Nicolï's employer, a wealthy, church-going British marchesa living the grand life. When Angharad makes a clumsy pass at her protÇgÇe, Pippa flees to Nicolï, who is sleeping in his gondola, which is about as realistic as a New York cabbie camping out in Central Park for the night. Sex here is bewildering: Angharad is fired because she should not be working around pretty girls; the word lesbian is never uttered. On the heterosexual front, Pippa is offended that Nicolï has taken care of birth control. Nicolï, too, turns out to have his faults, and Pippa leaves Venice—what else?—older and wiser. It would be difficult to find a clichÇ about love, Italy, or art that Godden has missed. As full of garbage as Venice's famed canals.
Pub Date: Nov. 28, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-13397-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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