Katharine is compelling, but the narrative is long, ornate in style, and infinitely faceted. Still, richly worthwhile for...
A priceless constellation of gems finds its way from medieval Burgundy to Victorian London in Britisher Hill’s (Underground, not reviewed) tortuous and exacting historical saga.
Katharine Sterne is a contemporary Englishwoman of mysterious means on the trail of the illusive, once-famous jewel cluster first commission by Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and called the Three Brethren. Set with three balas rubies, pearls, and a central diamond, the Three Brothers passed among European royalty to raise money for armies until bought by the Tudors; it became “the greatest of the English Crown Jewels” before it was broken up and scattered across the continents. Sterne, traveling alone and with only a few stones of her own to finance her way, patiently but single-mindedly sifts through the layers of the jewels’ history, which take her from Turkey to London to Japan. Meanwhile, Hill illuminates for his readers the journey of the rubies and central diamond as they returned by the mid-1800s to their starting point, Baghdad, where two peasant Jewish brothers, Salman and Daniel Levy, find them in a ceramic jar. Hill seems fascinated by his intricate, archived material, as he does with gems and their terminology, and he strives valiantly through the first-person voice of restless, transient Katharine to convey this obsession. Prudently and most effectively, he dramatizes exciting historical episodes, such as the moment when the two lapidary brothers are presented to young Queen Victoria, who happens to be wearing the same stones they were cheated into selling.
Katharine is compelling, but the narrative is long, ornate in style, and infinitely faceted. Still, richly worthwhile for just the right kind of sophisticated reader.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-28773-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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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