Sorry — but even the voice of the Pulitzer jury cannot make me one of Lanny Budd's fans. This is the fifth in the series — and all the ingredients which apparently made for popularity of the first four are here again. The characters are chiefly old friends; Lanny and Irma are divorced; Trudy and Lanny secretly married — and then she disappears; Beauty continues to hold court on the Riviera; Irma has married her landed aristocrat, and becomes a vocal member of the Cliveden set; and Lanny's closest friends have "gone underground". Lanny turns all efforts into trying to find Trudy and during the period he attempts to carry on as she would have him. He uses his art contacts to keep in touch with the highest officials in the Nazi party, in France, in Germany; he plays up his interest (one is kept in some doubt as to the depth of his sincerity) in psychic phenomena, and eventually makes this a link with Hitler and Hess; he plays both ends against the middle, acting as "Presidential Agent" and getting important data out from neutral countries to F.D.R. — and at the same time, feeding the beast with tidbits (which were probably already known) to keep up the pretense of his own fascistic leanings (and conceal his "pinkness"). There's one hair-breadth escape — a futile gesture — for ultimately he knows that Trudy has died at Daehau. Lanny is given credit for various world-shaping events-, the Quarantine Speech, etc; he has his finger in the Munich-Berchtesgaden — Godesberg affairs. He finds out what he needs to know, and holds on to the long-range view. The story stops short of the invasion of Poland. All the panoply of luxurious living is there; the sense of being at the heart of things. Probably many who get little from the papers will feel better informed on the steps leading to war because of reading these books. It will sell — and rent.
Pub Date: June 2, 1944
ISBN: 1931313059
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1944
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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