It's easy to see why Stefan became a German feminist icon after the 1975 publication of the novella ``Shedding,'' and equally easy to see why her influence has waned with stories like those collected under the title ``Literally Dreaming.'' ``Shedding'' paints an intimate portrait of a woman learning to exist without men. That idea must have seemed shocking at its inception, and even today the fluid prose exerts a strong pull through its laid-back, unnamed, first-person narrator. She outlines her sex life, beginning with a painful ``first time,'' but is primarily concerned with what women do and how they act when they no longer need to serve as emotional intermediaries for men. Eventually, a loving, almost maternal bond develops between the narrator and a woman named Fenna, who grope desperately for language to express what is happening between them. Not a single word of this tale of one woman's consciousness being raised sounds dated almost 20 years later. The short stories, however, are pale, ineffective repetitions of that powerful exploration of nascent feminism. They inhabit the world that the narrator of ``Shedding'' aims for—women living together out in the country without men—but lack the natural structure and tension provided by the novella narrator's sexual evolution. In an interesting essay appended here, ``Euphoria and Cacophony,'' Stefan recalls that ``Literally Dreaming'' was unpopular in Germany because ``nothing sensational happens; there's no action, no sex scenes, no struggle against men''—however, the interchangeable stories' endless nature scenes and incomplete sentences may also have had something to do with the negative reaction. With the exception of Stefan's essay, which is cluttered with lines like ``But I'm anticipating myself,'' the translations are solid but overly cautious. An afterword by Levin provides useful background on international feminist literature and Stefan's place in its spectrum. Experimental writing with a 50% success rate.
Pub Date: Dec. 30, 1994
ISBN: 1-55861-081-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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