An earnest if also lethargic footnote to a footnote of history. (This is the first of Knauss’s five novels to be translated...
Talk about 15 minutes of celebrity: here’s a novel based on German dramaturgy professor Knauss’s interviews with Gertrude Weisker, who spent the last several months of WWII with her cousin Eva Braun at Hitler’s mountain retreat.
Readers of the account will of course try to distinguish the made-up from what really happened to “Marlene.” At 20, she goes to stay with her lonely cousin Eva while Hitler is away pursuing the war. Though Marlene never actually meets the Führer, she does meet his henchmen Goring, Speer (who shows a brief but polite interest in the physics textbook Marlene is studying), et al. For over half the book, the young woman merely describes her life: the daily routine, her family, the way Hitler’s household was run. We learn that Marlene’s father was anti-Hitler, that Eva’s sister was married off to an SS higher-up, that Eva was totally devoted to her lover and oblivious of politics, accepting her status as mistress even though she yearned to be a wife, that Marlene listened secretly to radio reports from London, and—now—that she has carried into her old age a heavy, if largely secret, guilt about those months. The information is interesting (and avoids any taint of the self-serving), but it doesn’t coalesce into a real plot until the arrival of Mikhail. Having escaped from a work camp nearby, the 16-year-old happens into the teahouse, separate from the main building, where Marlene has been staying alone. The danger in Marlene’s decision to harbor a foreign escapee on Hitler’s turf is obvious to the point of melodrama (she takes an SS lover to maintain a cover). But the tale does spring briefly to a fictional life with the retelling of Mikhail’s imprisonment and escape, his survival instinct and emotional energy making a strong contrast with Marlene’s depressed if pretentious musings.
An earnest if also lethargic footnote to a footnote of history. (This is the first of Knauss’s five novels to be translated into English.)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-44905-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
