The story often meanders and can be somewhat frustrating, but those who make it to the end of this eccentric tale will have...
All narrators are unreliable in this bewildering fencing match between a children’s-book author and a cultural anthropologist-turned-journalist.
The debut novel by Pletzinger, translated from the German, employs a surprisingly unique style to advance its unusual tale of storytellers and their self-deceptions. It opens with seven postcards written by journalist Daniel Mandelkern to his estranged wife Elisabeth, who also happens to be his editor. Daniel is chafing because he’s been assigned to interview the mysterious and reclusive children’s-book writer Dirk Svensson, author of the world-famous The Story of Leo and the Notmuch. “For almost two years, I’ve been writing for Elisabeth’s editorial department,” he complains. “I’ve questioned and profiled people for her, I’ve taken down life stories in shorthand and summarized worldviews, I’ve fulfilled her requests…I take notes because I want to put things in order (I want to sort myself out).” With his wife’s dried blood—left unexplained—on his hands, Mandelkern reluctantly journeys to a remote area northeast of Milan, where he’s met by a taciturn Svensson, his three-legged dog, a small but pretty Finnish woman and a young boy. The woman’s relationship to the writer is unclear, but she provides insight into Svensson’s character. “Everything Svensson says is made up, Manteli, you can write that,” she says. “Svensson collects fragments and assembles them into a world he can bear.” Along the way, Mandelkern meets an insane neighbor; finds a house full of artwork surrounding a person who cannot paint; and unearths a mysterious manuscript.
The story often meanders and can be somewhat frustrating, but those who make it to the end of this eccentric tale will have enjoyed an undeniably uncommon journey. Pletzinger is a unique young voice emerging from the hotbed of the German literary scene.Pub Date: March 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-393-33725-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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
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