There are two things we can say. Many feel Bellow is the best novelist of his generation, or at the very least, the best stylist. Herzog is not one of his best novels. It is, however, irritatingly impressive, and a very crucial work in the canon. It looks backwards and forwards. Something of Seize the Day is here- the Levantine honesty; something too of Henderson's nervy brilliance; and something quite new: the hero, an intellectual schlemihl, a professor of philosophy, a searcher trying on the masks of comedy and tragedy, seems to be an alter ego, as if Bellow were on a trial run, getting rid of the more subjective kinks for a forthcoming Major Leap. And that might explain the self-indulgence which inhabits the book, and a particular strategy-charming, funny, educative, boring- whereby Herzog is kept writing letters to the great or near-great, past and present, from Nietzsche to Ike. The plot is as cluttered as a case history: married twice, cuckolded by his best friend, romancing hither and thither, Herzog engages in numerous journeys both through his own mind and the worlds of New York, Chicago, Montreal. He contemplates murder, remembers the Jewish experience, takes the temperature of the metropolis (Bellow is of course a master at evoking alienation), meditates as an open-ended scholar, a self-conscious lover: "But what do you want, Herzog?" "But that's just it- I don't want anything." Characters dart in and out, for the most part, like the dialogue, demandingly, dexterously real; the details are splendid. In the end wry, whipped Herzog (I will do no more to enact the peculiarities of life. This is done well enough without my special assistance) has no messages for anyone. He will presumably, Just Live. Bearing an odd-shaped resemblance to the Henry of Berryman's Dream Songs, Herzog sums-up prevalent mood: a Chaplinesque acceptance of the end of ideals. It should be read.
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1964
ISBN: 0142437298
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1964
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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