An anemic mishmash—for loyal fans only.
The prolific postmodernist (Phone Rings, 2005, etc.) profiles a writer trawling for material among family memories and fantasies.
It’s safe to say that the name of the writer is Meyer Ostrower, and that he lives with his wife Sandra in a Baltimore suburb; safe because this information is given frequently. It’s also safe to say that Sandra is 11 years younger than the 68-year-old Meyer. Other details are more murky (we’re given two versions of how they met) and sometimes Meyer flat out contradicts himself, as in his account of groping a female neighbor. An unreliable narrator, indeed. Supposedly, Meyer is a tenured professor, but we don’t see him on campus; when he’s not taking trips down memory lane, he’s home doing chores (there’s a whole section on cleaning the kitchen), napping or sitting at his typewriter (he’s seriously blocked). At the beginning, he’s having sex with his wife in the bathroom, but Meyer’s no stud; most of the time he can barely get it up. Death, not sex, is his major preoccupation. What if Sandra dies? Will it be fast or slow? How will he die? Pneumonia, heart attack? As for his mother, “he’s covered her death plenty,” but maybe he can treat it from a new angle. In one section, deaths reach a crescendo as his phone never stops ringing with news of another death, some eight in all—mostly relatives but a Siamese cat is part of the mix. It’s an absurdist sequence with an energy that’s lacking in his dreary recollections of attending his mother and his stepfather in their final days, or his fantasy of approaching his wife as a complete stranger. He’s his current age, but she’s much younger, and naturally she rejects him. The scene has an inherent futility, the same futility that dogs his attempt to write Sandra a letter after years of housekeeping notes.
An anemic mishmash—for loyal fans only.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933633-30-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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 2026 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.
