??Wharton's previous novels—Birdy, Dad—have treated the extraordinary and the strangely angled with such quiet ordinariness that one reads this seemingly plain WW II story waiting for the catch—the resonance couched in deceptively straight-ahead language that is Wharton's strongest imaginative virtue. This time, however, there's no such twist or depth; and Wharton admirers are hound to be disappointed. The narrator here is Will Knott (called Wont by his fellows), a non-com sergeant serving in the Ardennes with a reconnaissance and intelligence platoon. The platoon has an odd pedigree, being made up of super-bright high-school boys originally slated to be reservists held back home to fill the war-depleted professions. But shortages made them draftable—and now, despite sharp brains, they face having them possibly blown out; bridge players, they guard deserted French chateaux instead. Still, their above-the-norm intelligence does make them open to clever solutions to otherwise deadly problems. For instance, and at the novel's center, there's the appearance of a German platoon that seems to want to mock Wont's squad rather than massacre them: the Germans set up soldier corpses—German and American—in dance positions; they sing carols, leave scarecrows, even erect a makeshift Christmas tree. The Germans, scared and beaten, want out, the American squad realizes; through eerie symbols they're communicating their readiness for surrender. And this mini-truce almost comes off—but mistakes and nerves doom it, plunging everyone back into the violence of "normal" war. As beguiling as the idea of masquerade-within-carnage is, however, Wharton never seems to do more than feather its edges: there's a distressing lack of momentum or development here. And though the intellectual precociousness of the young G.I.s (and their terrible fear) is well done, it's not enough to hold this fragile novel together. So, even if Wharton's narrative voice remains so warmly inviting and unpretentious that you can't help but be carried along, this time the journey has a scattered destination: experience reflected in bits and pieces of mirror rather than in a ceiling of glass (Bird) or a whole interior room of it (Dad).
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1982
ISBN: 1557042578
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1982
Whitehead continues the African-American artists' inquiry into race mythology and history with rousing audacity and...
What if the metaphorical Underground Railroad had been an actual…underground railroad, complete with steam locomotive pulling a “dilapidated box car” along a subterranean nexus of steel tracks?
For roughly its first 60 pages, this novel behaves like a prelude to a slave narrative which is, at once, more jolting and sepulchral than the classic firsthand accounts of William Wells Brown and Solomon Northup. Its protagonist, Cora, is among several African-American men and women enslaved on a Georgia plantation and facing a spectrum of savage indignities to their bodies and souls. A way out materializes in the form of an educated slave named Caesar, who tells her about an underground railroad that can deliver her and others northward to freedom. So far, so familiar. But Whitehead, whose eclectic body of work encompasses novels (Zone One, 2011, etc.) playing fast and loose with “real life,” both past and present, fires his most daring change-up yet by giving the underground railroad physical form. This train conveys Cora, Caesar, and other escapees first to a South Carolina also historically unrecognizable with its skyscrapers and its seemingly, if microscopically, more liberal attitude toward black people. Compared with Georgia, though, the place seems so much easier that Cora and Caesar are tempted to remain, until more sinister plans for the ex-slaves’ destiny reveal themselves. So it’s back on the train and on to several more stops: in North Carolina, where they’ve not only abolished slavery, but are intent on abolishing black people, too; through a barren, more forbidding Tennessee; on to a (seemingly) more hospitable Indiana, and restlessly onward. With each stop, a slave catcher named Ridgeway, dispensing long-winded rationales for his wicked calling, doggedly pursues Cora and her diminishing company of refugees. And with every change of venue, Cora discovers anew that “freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close but from outside, the empty meadow, you see its true limits.” Imagine a runaway slave novel written with Joseph Heller’s deadpan voice leasing both Frederick Douglass’ grim realities and H.P. Lovecraft’s rococo fantasies…and that’s when you begin to understand how startlingly original this book is.
Whitehead continues the African-American artists' inquiry into race mythology and history with rousing audacity and razor-sharp ingenuity; he is now assuredly a writer of the first rank.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-53703-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
An engaging story framed by a brooding meditation on time and meaning.
In this new novel by Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive, 2016), a man of extraordinarily long life deals with a painfully ordinary question: what is it we live for?
Tom Hazard, though he has gone by many names, has an unusual condition that makes him age exceptionally slowly—he's more than 400 years old in 2017 but looks a mere 40-something. Tragic events taught him early that his seeming agelessness is a lightning rod for witch hunters and the dangerously suspicious in all eras. For protection, he belongs to the Albatross Society, a secret organization led by Hendrich, an ancient, charismatic man who's highly protective of his members and aggressive about locating and admitting other “albas” into the group. After assisting Hendrich in one such quest, Tom starts a new life in London; he's haunted by memories of his previous life there in the early 1600s, when he had to leave his wife and young child to ensure their safety. He's losing hope that Hendrich will help him find his daughter, who he's learned shares his condition. He muddles through his days until he meets a French teacher who claims she recognizes his face. Unraveling that mystery will lead Tom to re-examine his deeply etched pessimism. Meanwhile, readers are treated to memories of his past, including encounters with Shakespeare, Capt. Cook, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Tom sometimes wallows overmuch about the changelessness of the human condition, and one might be forgiven for wondering why so much time has not done more to heal his oldest wounds. But Haig skillfully enlivens Tom’s history with spare, well-chosen detail, making much of the book transporting.
An engaging story framed by a brooding meditation on time and meaning.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-52287-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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