by Stephen Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993
Ostensibly a novel about the legendary Moroccan tribe of musicians, this awkward narrative by the rock critic Davis (Hammer of the Gods, 1985) reads more like a work of pop ethnomusicology. One suspects that lawyers had more to do with its classification than any generic considerations by the author. In any case, Davis's tale of ``Roman gods and Muslim saints, Rolling Stones and Moroccan tribes'' is a fine travelogue of modern Africa, with walk-on speaking roles by such real-life figures as William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Bernardo Bertolucci. What they all share is a fascination with the Master Musicians of Jajouka, a tribal group from a remote Moroccan hill town who preserve an Islamic type of music brought from medieval Spain when the Moors were expelled in the 15th century. Central to their musical celebrations is a Greco- Roman Arcadian ritual in which a local young man plays the role of Bou Jeloud, a half-man, half-goat flutist with mystical powers of fertility. Davis' narrative takes its shape from the narrator's journalistic efforts to make the musicians' way of life known throughout the world, inspired by the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones, who first recorded their sound in the late 60's. Throughout the 70's, the unnamed narrator tries to sell various editors on the story of this magical group, but their commercial appeal remains limited, their legend obscure. Finally, in the 80's, an ambitious entrepreneur brings Jajouka to Europe, and this tour is the beginning of the end. No longer a premodern band of folk musicians, the group is split by bickering over money and leadership. Amazingly, though, the narrator never once considers what is a basic notion among contemporary anthropologists: his own role as participant-observer and how it inevitably alters the history of this once-unsullied music. The trite observations about cultures clashing and the wide- eyed acceptance of Jajouka's mystical power make this weak social science. And Davis's lumpy narration, with its perfunctory dialogue, hardly redeems itself as fiction.
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-42119-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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