An engrossing fictionalized history that examines an ingenious and powerful Chinese ruler.
Xiong (The A to Z of Medieval China, 2010, etc.) tells the story of Chinese Emperor Taizong of Tang in this historical novel.
The China of the late Sui dynasty faces barbarian threats from outside its borders and rebellious barons within them. When Li Shimin’s father, the Duke of Tang, decides he must replace the sovereign in order to restore stability to the state, the teenager finds himself a general in command of a rebel army. His relatives become the rulers of the new Tang dynasty in 618, though their reign is just as fraught with intrigue and treachery as that of the Sui. Li Shimin turns out to be the shrewdest tactician of the family. In the July 2 coup, the crown prince “eliminated his challengers, effectively sidelined his father, and emerged as the true power-holder at court.” Forcing his father to abdicate the throne, Li Shimin becomes the Emperor of Tang. He then sets to ruling the fractured prefectures of China, adopting policies of benevolence and reconciliation and accepting critical appraisals from his court. He uses all his skills to bring his nation into a new golden age, going down in history as one of the greatest rulers China has ever known. Supplementary material includes a bibliography, chronology, and a 20-page glossary/dramatis personae that the reader should put to great use. The novel, more fictionalized history than historical fiction, essentially reads like a work of popular history, with many scenes dramatized. The book dispenses with superfluous plot elements of the sort one would expect to find in a historical novel but includes many explanatory passages that read as though they’ve been excerpted from a textbook. While this may sound stilted, it actually makes for an engaging cross-genre reading experience. It’s reminiscent of nothing so much as the pre-modern texts from which it takes its inspiration, where fact, legend, and anecdote sit comfortably side by side. The technique lends a compelling veracity to the events even if it forces Xiong to hold his characters at a greater distance from the reader.
An engrossing fictionalized history that examines an ingenious and powerful Chinese ruler.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-9-86-628666-7
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Airiti Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’...
Fresh version of one of the world’s oldest epic poems, a foundational text of Western literature.
Sing to me, O muse, of the—well, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson (Classical Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) chooses is the rather bland “complicated man,” the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as “of twists and turns.” Wilson has a few favorite words that the Greek doesn’t strictly support, one of them being “monstrous,” meaning something particularly heinous, and to have Telemachus “showing initiative” seems a little report-card–ish and entirely modern. Still, rose-fingered Dawn is there in all her glory, casting her brilliant light over the wine-dark sea, and Wilson has a lively understanding of the essential violence that underlies the complicated Odysseus’ great ruse to slaughter the suitors who for 10 years have been eating him out of palace and home and pitching woo to the lovely, blameless Penelope; son Telemachus shows that initiative, indeed, by stringing up a bevy of servant girls, “their heads all in a row / …strung up with the noose around their necks / to make their death an agony.” In an interesting aside in her admirably comprehensive introduction, which extends nearly 80 pages, Wilson observes that the hanging “allows young Telemachus to avoid being too close to these girls’ abused, sexualized bodies,” and while her reading sometimes tends to be overly psychologized, she also notes that the violence of Odysseus, by which those suitors “fell like flies,” mirrors that of some of the other ungracious hosts he encountered along his long voyage home to Ithaca.
More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’ recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-393-08905-9
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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