Probably too ornate for some, but a beautifully written story that carries great weights of meaning.
Israeli poet and novelist Shalev (Love Life, 2000) returns with a highly polished and deeply metaphoric account of a troubled marriage.
Somewhat in the tradition of Gregor Samsa, protagonist Udi wakes up in Jerusalem one morning to find that he has a big problem—he can’t move. Udi’s wife Naama and his daughter Noga try to rouse him, but he remains paralyzed. At the hospital, however, all of Udi’s doctors and all of the doctors’ tests agree: There is nothing wrong with him. So they send him to the psychiatrists, who find themselves equally at a loss. Naama takes Udi home and discovers that he's capable of arousal, so (like Lot’s daughter) she gets him drunk on wine and makes love to him in his sleep. This highlights what turns out to be a very significant aspect of Udi’s problem: He had become bored with the routines of his marriage and family life. The story, as narrated by Naama, becomes a kind of Proustian recollection of the marriage, which reached its high point in the happy months following Noga’s birth but has declined steadily in the ten years since. Can those early days be recaptured? Naama, as valiant a wife as any in the Book of Proverbs, tries, taking Udi on vacation and bearing his bad temper with astonishing fortitude—but whatever it is that ails him, it goes very deep. A clue is offered by Zohara, an acupuncturist who tells Naama that she and Udi have been blessed, not cursed, with this malady, and that they should not be in a rush to see him recover. New Age drivel? Or simply a new way of looking at old problems? Maybe Milton knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the “happy fall” from Eden.
Probably too ornate for some, but a beautifully written story that carries great weights of meaning.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8021-1718-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
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
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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