In this elegant comedy edged with tragedy, an old poet's longing for the eponymous recognition, though mocked, is also...
Austrian writer Schnitzler (1862-1931; Desire and Delusion: Three Novellas, 2003, etc.) pokes fun at literary pretensions and ambitions in this short novella nearly lost in the Nazi book burning campaign of 1933 and published in the U.S. for the first time.
Eduard Saxberger, an elderly civil servant in Vienna, finds his poetry "rediscovered" by a group of young literary aspirants. Hailing him as Maestro and praising the single slim volume he published 30 years before, they welcome him to evening meetings at a local cafe. Saxberger, flattered, abandons the bourgeois acquaintances he now feels never really knew him in favor of young poets, a playwright, a frustrated novelist, a critic, and a "tragedienne" who flirts with him. Schnitzler paints a deft, playful, well-informed picture of the Viennese literary scene. Rereading his own work, Saxberger wonders "how the world could have passed so unheedingly over verses such as these." Naturally, the undiscovered geniuses of the Enthusiasm Society are insufficiently appreciated by the public. They hold the other patrons of the cafe in contempt for being successful. As the poet Meier explains, "Talentless...is what we generally call those who sit at different tables from us." The group decides to organize a "recital" in order to showcase their talent, and Saxberger agrees to write a new work for the occasion. His attempt to fulfill the part of the "venerable poet" and achieve recognition gives the book its dramatic tension. The night of the recital unfolds with convincing, and inevitable, melancholy. Each character is prey to his or her own egotism and insecurity. Saxberger imagines an "intoxicating, deafening success." Instead, mingled with the polite applause, he hears a pitying remark that brings tears of enraged hurt to his eyes, which the others misinterpret as proof of an excess of feeling. In the end, Saxberger goes back to his old life with the sense that he is "returning from a short, troublesome journey to a home that he had never loved."
In this elegant comedy edged with tragedy, an old poet's longing for the eponymous recognition, though mocked, is also understood.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68137-084-2
Page Count: 136
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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