A lucid history of the Jewish experience after World War II, but unsatisfying as a fictional tale of real people in the...
In this historically panoramic drama, the horror of the holocaust permanently binds and alters the lives of two German boys.
Leo Bergner is a young Jewish boy whose otherwise quiet middle-class upbringing is ruptured by the rise of the Third Reich. After fleeing his native Germany in order to escape the persecution that envelops his parents, Leo matures into a committed Zionist, becoming a British officer to defend Israel against its anti-Semitic adversaries, Nazi and Arab alike. Leo’s childhood piano teacher, Bruno Franzmann, follows a different trajectory: He works for the Nazis as an administrator at a concentration camp. A wave of consequence washes over all who sided with the Fuhrer when it becomes clear that Allied Powers will prevail, so Bruno decamps for Buenos Aires. There he hopes to begin a criminal enterprise centered on bribing former Nazis bent on concealing their identities. The narrative leads the reader to the final crescendo, their reunion: Now a well-heeled banker, Leo discovers a vast financial conspiracy that facilitated the looting of Jewish property during the war, which draws him into Bruno’s nefarious dealings. Maitland-Lewis’ tale is scrupulously researched, saturated with rich historical detail. His account often deftly depicts both the gradual unfurling of Nazi atrocities and the psychological trauma thrust upon so many Jews as a result. While Leo struggles with the pathos of a fractured identity—his German nationality pitted against his Jewish religion—Bruno abandons all sense of allegiance to his own narrowly conceived self-interest. Problematically, such an ambitious psychodrama requires deeply textured characters and a nuanced exploration of their motives, which Maitland-Lewis doesn’t fully offer. A few developments don’t add up—Bruno’s growth from a morally divested Nazi collaborator to anti-Nazi compatriot or hardnosed Leo’s sympathy for him. The story seems to be designed as a moral parable, but the lesson isn’t quite clear.
A lucid history of the Jewish experience after World War II, but unsatisfying as a fictional tale of real people in the throes of moral crisis.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2011
ISBN: 78-0983259633
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Glyd-Evans Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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