Great expectations and a large canvas boil down to vibrant local color, undying attachments and a lot of sex.
Restless spirits disrupt a contemporary marriage in this epic first novel set against the vivid backdrop of India’s shift into modernity.
Tejpal’s fluent, sprawling, ambitious debut intends to span love and sex, colonialism and independence, India’s partition and many more polarities. It opens with a loss of desire: The nameless narrator’s previously infinite lust for sex with Fizz, his partner for 15 years, has evaporated. Six months later, the couple will have separated both from each other and from the fabulous old house they share in the foothills of the Himalayas. At an unhurried pace, the story then backtracks to the start of the relationship, dwelling obsessively on its carnality when not charting, at length, the narrator’s plodding and unsuccessful attempts to write a novel. The panoply of Indian life—historical and contemporary, urban and rural—is presented in richly descriptive detail (particularly the sex), while the subcontinent’s politics is discussed in sweeping statements and metaphors. The story chugs toward its turning point: the death of the narrator’s grandmother, whose legacy pays for the country house, where renovations uncover a sealed box and 64 volumes of a journal. These scribbles form the story of Catherine, an American traveler in pursuit of love and desire during the colonial era who becomes the wife of a gay Indian prince and lover of her servant, or, as the narrator puts it: “Lady Chatterley does the lower Himalayas.” It is the narrator’s obsession with Catherine’s story and his salacious hallucinations about her that brings about the end of his marriage. Two-and-a-half more years are needed to finish the diaries, longer still to solve the mystery of Catherine’s death and restore her daughter’s legacy, but he earns thereby his reunion with Fizz.
Great expectations and a large canvas boil down to vibrant local color, undying attachments and a lot of sex.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-088856-3
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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