Indomitable human spirit, or a master of self-delusion? Either way, Andy is a triumphant achievement, squirm-inducingly...
Four months in the life of a desperate, depressed and sexually frustrated landlord.
Andrew Whittaker blames “low-quality tenants” for the disrepair of his buildings in the Midwestern town of Rapid Falls. He has a somewhat better relationship with estranged wife Jolie, even though she left him to pursue an (unsuccessful) acting career in New York City. Letters to Jolie and a variety of significant others chronicle the declining fortunes of Andy’s real-estate holdings and of Soap: A Journal of the Arts, the literary publication he founded and edits. Savage (Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, 2006) intersperses as well grocery lists, rental ads (“BIG AND COZY!”), rejection form letters and fragments of what Andy describes as “an odd little something which I suppose we’ll have to call a novel,” whose protagonist is plainly his alter ego. Correspondence also documents sexual behavior that might seem inappropriate and/or despicable, but mostly comes across pathetic. Andy attempts to change his luck by planning a literary festival that sounds more like a circus or carnival: Its slogan is, “Far Out is Fun”; attractions include elephants and bumper cars. “I thought we could give the cars the names of literary fashions—Romanticism, Realism, etc.—and a person could choose his affiliation and crash it into the others,” he says to an aspiring poet he’s hoping to seduce, despite the fact that she’s a schoolgirl. Andy attempts to convince former friends who have become successful writers to participate in the festival without recompense, but the only result from such missives is that one of them starts seeing Jolie. His solipsistic ravings barely acknowledge the Nixon presidency during which these letters are written.
Indomitable human spirit, or a master of self-delusion? Either way, Andy is a triumphant achievement, squirm-inducingly credible and the palpitating heart of this very funny, very dark novel.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-56689-231-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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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