In a novel that reads like a cross between the precise, stylized movements of traditional Noh dance-drama and the mawkish melodrama of modern-day soap opera, popular novelist Ariyoshi offers a fictionalized history of the origins of Kabuki theater. Based on 16th- and 17th-century historical accounts, the author imagines the life of Okuni, the legendary temple dancer who is said to have almost single-handedly given birth to the art form of Kabuki as it is known today. Traveling with her troupe of provincial dancing girls and with her greedy, unfaithful husband Sankuro, Okuni dazzles audiences with the startlingly light and prancing folk-dance steps of her village, which gradually evolve into much more radical performances involving cross-dressing and a popular comedic flavor intrinsic to Kabuki. As they travel from Kyoto to Edo and back, the dancers fall into and out of favor with the ruling elite, sometimes finding themselves dancing on a homemade stage in the prostitutes' quarter and other times in a palace chamber, depending on the social and political climate at the time. Throughout their travels, the author dramatizes both the power struggles within the troupe, fueled by jealousies and love affairs, and their intersection with the power struggles in another company. The love triangles and quadrangles involving Okuni are as complex and deftly woven as any daytime drama, yet the novel suffers from a repetitiveness, possibly born from the fact that it was originally published in serial installments. The author's convincing premise, that Okuni's need to compete with the bastardized versions of her Kabuki performed by prostitutes in theaters adjacent to hers forced her to be ever more innovative in her choreography and performance, ultimately suffers from overuse and repetition that stretches the bounds of interest. A two-dimensional and too-long fictionalization of the origins of Kabuki, which works better as a myth than as a novel.
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 4-7700-1783-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Kodansha
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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