Having successfully reanimated Shakespeare's day in her debut, Nicholas Cooke (1993), Cowell comes up well short of the mark in this sequelan attempt to convey the turbulence of London life in the years leading up to the English Civil War. Nicholas Cooke is again in the thick of things, this time as a newly appointed priest and self-sacrificing physician who in 1617 befriends young Thomas Wentworth, destined to become King Charles's right-hand man. At first Nick and Tom are the closest of comrades: They share confidences and dreams, joining with other scientifically minded men, among them William Harvey, the King's physician, to discuss matters of science. Nick pursues his research into magnifying lenses as assiduously as Tom courts favor from the King, but Tom proves more successful initially. Appointed to increasingly influential positions, he gains in prominence while he loses in private lifehis first two wives die in their prime. Meanwhile, Nick for his part overcomes a reluctance to remarry when he meets his match in brainy beauty Cecilia, but their harmonious union turns sour when he learns that a mutual attraction between her and Tom gave rise to a quick coupling as he lay grieving over the death of Wife #2. The rupture mends in time, even as the split between King and Puritan Parliament widens; when the King's effort to subdue the unruly Scots fails, Tom is picked by both parties as the fall guy. Matters only worsen after his beheading, however, so that when London goes over to the Puritans, loyal royalists Nick and Cecilia are first isolated and then assaulted, forcing them to flee to France. With complex relations given short shrift and Nick's mental anguishing endlessly circularto wed or not to wed, to forgive or not to forgive, etc.a sequel that's both shallow and leaden, with little of its predecessor's more innocent charms.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03873-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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