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STORIES FROM A SIBERIAN VILLAGE

Name: STORIES FROM A SIBERIAN VILLAGE
Author: Vasily Shukshin
ISBN: 0-87580-211-7

by Vasily Shukshin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1996

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Stories From A Siberian Village ($35.00; paper $16.00; Oct. 1996; 285 pp.; 0-87580-211-7; paper 0-87580-572-8): A generous collection of 25 stories—11 of which were previously unavailable in English translation—by the popular and charismatic Russian author (192974) who was also a renowned actor and film director. There's a hint of Erskine Caldwell in Shukshin's vigorous, earthy stories of northern Russian village life—specifically of his restless characters' yearnings to stretch beyond their origins and their often uneasy accommodation to urban life. The standout entries include a number of autobiographical stories (such as ``Oddball'' and ``Uncle Yermolai''), the amusing ``Mille Pardons, Madame'' (about an aborted attempt to assassinate Hitler), and the romantic ``Stenka Razin,'' the tale of a 17th-century Cossack Robin Hood whose adventures Shukshin explored in both fiction and film, and whose ebullient unconventionality clearly appealed to, as it resembles, Shukshin's own bold and defiant spirit.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-87580-211-7

Page Count: 285

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN

by Jacqueline Harpman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997

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I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').

Pub Date: May 1, 1997

ISBN: 1-888363-43-6

Page Count: 224

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ORLANDA
by Jacqueline Harpman & translated by Ros Schwartz

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.