The cards—and the corn—are stacked as high as an elephant's eye in this treacly tale of true grit on the Kansas plains in the early 1890s—an unintentionally uproarious amalgam of To Kill a Mockingbird, Friendly Persuasion, and Les MisÇrables. Pearl Eddy, a plucky Quaker widow (who's also blind), tries to support herself and her four growing sons by farming, sewing, and fending off mortgage foreclosure. It's a relief to report that nobody ties her to the railroad tracks, but Pearl does endure a dizzying profusion of disasters, including the opprobrium of lunkheaded neighbors who violently protest when she takes in, first, a black bare-knuckle fighter named Prophet who's fleeing a lynch mob, then a dispossessed Japanese family whose newly purchased land was reclaimed for unpaid taxes—all the while condemning anybody who resorts to ``violence'' rather than face being beaten senseless. That's not entirely fair: Eidson (St. Agnes' Stand, 1994) does convey the unshaken purity of Pearl's faith effectively, sometimes even movingly. But the novel becomes more unreal, and predictable, as it progresses. Prophet, for instance, keeps leaving the sanctuary of the Eddys' farmhouse (and the little boy who of course idolizes him), only to keep having a change of heart and returning in the nick of time to. . . let's just say that this is the sort of story in which everybody happens on the scene at the Exact Moment when somebody else's fortune, or virtue, or bodily existence is threatened—not excluding a superannuated samurai ``Warlord,'' a pet rooster, and even a reformed rapist and a mollified banker who are there to help turn the tide at the climactic flurry of fire, rattlesnakes, and vigilantism. The inevitable television miniseries is undoubtedly in production at this very moment. (First serial to Reader's Digest Condensed Books)
Pub Date: June 9, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-94235-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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