Sophisticated, slightly daffy poke at our Masters of the Universe.
A pretty Marseillaise, a pretty grim Corsican and a happily pessimistic hedge-fund manager get themselves into a pretty fix with world shattering results, in the second novel from Berberian (The Cyclist, 2002).
Wayne is the very young and very successful manager of Empiricus, a hedge fund built on the belief that there is always something nasty lurking around the corner and that bubbles always burst. While the rest of the world searches for the Next Big Thing, Wayne and Empiricus search for the Next Awful Thing. And it doesn’t matter what: Political upheaval. War. Disease. There’s always trouble somewhere, and always money to be made if one spots the disaster while everyone else looks for the silver lining. One little pocket of trouble is on Corsica, where a cardboard manufacturer is about to breathe its last, further worsening the woeful economy of the depressed French province, further depressing an anti-global local known to Alix, his architectural student sweetheart in Marseilles, and to Wayne, who has been dumping the cardboard company stock, only as the Corsican. But Wayne, never completely satisfied with letting nature schedule her own disasters, has uses for the Corsican. He also has hopes for an eventual meeting with Alix, with whom he has been corresponding. Alix is a rather fey thing, given to spending nights under the stars on the rooftops of the local high rises. Although she rather fancies Wayne, whom she has yet to meet, she still has liaisons with the Corsican. Wayne has more than a romantic interest in Alix; he’s having her ship diagrams of prominent architectural landmarks, drawings that will find their way, marked with Alix’s signature, into the hands of the Corsican. When Wayne and Alix finally meet, they strike sparks. And more sparks.
Sophisticated, slightly daffy poke at our Masters of the Universe.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-6723-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
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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