A gentle, intelligent exercise in nihilism: Life, Jelloun seems to say with a pained smile, is hardly worth discussing.
In this consideration of the meaning of friendship, desertion and lies become an expression of loyalty.
Mamed and Ali have been best friends since their school days in Tangiers. They discover sex together, in brothels and with their willing but necessarily circumspect peers—girls who cheerfully embrace sodomy as a means of preserving their virginity for marriage. Through aimlessness as much as conviction, they become involved in left-wing politics, and both are imprisoned. In prison, each man saves the other’s life. Although both marry women who are jealous of the friendship, it survives, remaining the main relationship in the men’s lives even after Mamed leaves Tangiers to take a long-term job in Stockholm. One day, without warning and for apparently fanciful reasons, Mamed turns on Ali, brutally accuses him of using the friendship to steal from Mamed’s family, and refuses to ever see or speak to him again. Ben Jelloun (Islam Explained, 2002, etc.) tells his story in three first-person narratives: The first is from the perspective of Ali, the abandoned friend; then Mamed tells the same history, exposing the reason for his rejection of Ali; finally, a mutual friend of both adds a postscript. This structure is employed to depict the delicate shades of difference between similar minds. The tone is placid, at times almost bored. The only characters of importance are the friends, and the book suggests that the ultimate significance of a life can be expressed in a single relationship. In making that relationship humdrum, passionless and lacking in substance, the author has produced a work that may be likened to a long, disappointed sigh.
A gentle, intelligent exercise in nihilism: Life, Jelloun seems to say with a pained smile, is hardly worth discussing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2006
ISBN: 1-59558-008-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
If McGrath would just lose the embarrassing stereotypes and polish the writing, we'd like to see more of him.
In this second outing (Murder at Sunset, 2001), "nosey old maid" Maggie Goss, bless her, helps foil a North Korean terrorist plot.
Maggie and her good friend Helen Washington have retreated to Northern California to recuperate from the Mafia murders of their families. To distract herself, Maggie signs up for flying lessons, and during a simulated emergency, she attempts to land at Mysterious Valley, a private runway. As a bright green laser sweeps through the cockpit, Maggie, a gleaming example of chutzpah, resolves to identify the beam and its function, teaming up with physicist Chuck Hoppmann and sidekick Helen. While trespassing at the private airstrip, the trio encounters one of those sinister Asians with a Swedish surname and "a hint of Asian accent, like first generation Asian-Americans." It seems the North Koreans have set up headquarters at a nearby St. Helena winery to produce botulin toxin, and not for nifty Botox injections–but for use on warheads aimed at Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington! (The laser is a communication device, see.) The Keystone communists keep screwing everything up, however, by using non-Asian surnames, and by their insistence on driving "Asian sedans." (Don't ask, but the characters' real names aren't Korean at all, but, rather, "General Hi-Woo," for example, and "Major Sing.") Clearly, old Maggie has her work cut out for her. But the feisty amateur sleuth is up to the job, even becoming an FBI operative–complete with a backpack full of kickass Quantico-developed weaponry. The plot hustles along, with Maggie an interesting, if somewhat superficial, heroine.
If McGrath would just lose the embarrassing stereotypes and polish the writing, we'd like to see more of him.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9716072-2-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Manufactured, yet whimsical–strangely endearing enough to warrant a second look.
An odd little paean to mullet-fishing and the Florida coast that's not quite fable, not quite love story.
Once upon a time, it begins, three mullet (no, not the distinctive coiffure–these are fish) lived in the muddy waters of Cook Bayou: a wise mullet, a middling mullet, and a dumb mullet. When a boy and his father go fishing one day, only the wise mullet is intelligent enough to flee the net. The middling mullet faints from terror, and the boy's father throws the fish away, explaining, “Son, we don't eat fish that are already dead.” Alas, the dumb mullet–too stupid to flee, too unimaginative to faint–gets caught in the net and eaten, fried golden brown and accompanied by cheese grits. With his less fortunate friends out of the way, the wise mullet explores the marine glories of East Bay on a series of double-page spreads. His journey comes to an end in Pretty Bayou, where he meets a shiny-scaled mullet with fluttering eyelashes and shiny lipstick. They splash, play, and eat mud together, ultimately swimming off into a technicolor rainbow. Mechanically skilled yet unattractive illustrations combine cartoon-like figures with picturesque photographic backgrounds. The marine images that form the bulk of this inconsistently moralistic story are its strength, but one truly horrifying illustration–depicting the dumb mullet's bones picked clean–provides an uncomfortable counterpoint to the wise mullet's cavalier dismissal of those he's left behind.
Manufactured, yet whimsical–strangely endearing enough to warrant a second look. (5-7)Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9713573-8-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 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.
