Readers may enjoy this two-tier story more for its accessible romantic and family dramas than its convoluted religious...
Figures from Jewish mysticism and mythology, a Russian grandfather’s legacy and the fate of a newborn child entwine in an inventive if at times obscure debut.
With its wheeling stars, magical rabbi, disgraced angels, black dogs and European hinterland, Feldman’s novel—though set substantially in contemporary New York—has the flavor of Chagall’s visionary art. Its central characters are previously devoted sisters Marjorie and Holly Burke, whose close relationship has been disrupted by Holly’s unexpected marriage to an orthodox Jew, Nathan. Marjorie, the studious one, is working on a Ph.D. about the Wandering Jew, while Holly has given birth to her first child, Eli, named after the girls’ grandfather (who died recently, and to whom Marjorie was especially close). Searching through old Eli’s possessions, Marjorie finds one of four notebooks in which he wrote stories of the White Rebbe, a religious guru of great stature who carries the Sabbath Light and owes a promise to the Angel of Losses. While seeking the other three books, Marjorie meets Simon, another student doing research in a similar area, who will become her lover; she also repeatedly encounters a strange, possibly sinister elderly man with piercing blue eyes who gives her an amulet and seems to know a lot about old Eli. As Marjorie learns the truth about her grandfather’s tragic past, young Eli falls gravely ill and Nathan disappears. By turns gothic, heart-rending and impenetrable, Feldman’s story sometimes seems too wrapped up in its theology but eventually reaches a cosmic climax in which Marjorie embraces her destiny while re-establishing her connection to Holly.
Readers may enjoy this two-tier story more for its accessible romantic and family dramas than its convoluted religious arcana, but Feldman devotes passionate storytelling and powerful narrative skills to both.Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-222891-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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