The over-familiar emptiness and super-decadence of L.A.—witnessed, this time around, by a very young semi-outsider. Clay is 18, home for Christmas break from college in New Hampshire. And he quickly finds himself in the swim of life such as it is in his circle: movie-industry parents, ubiquitous cocaine, Valium, MTV, bisexuality, anorexia, Mercedes cars—and a daily round of numbing, inconsequential acts. ("I don't think anyone is up yet and I notice that my mother's door is closed, probably locked. I walk outside and dive into the pool and do twenty quick laps and then get out, towel myself off dry as I walk into the kitchen. Take an orange from the refrigerator and peel it as I walk upstairs. I eat the orange before I get into the shower and realize that I don't have time for the weights. Then I go into the room and turn on MTV really loud and cut myself another line and then drive to meet my father for lunch.") After these vacant days, the nights are devoted to partying: the in-group gatherings sometimes involve the screening of snuff films; on one occasion an actual murder-mutilation occurs. So, though Clay does do some running with a crowd that is into male prostitution (to support drug-habits), he eventually backs away from all the sub-zero sleaziness. Throughout, first-novelist Ellis and narrator Clay register everything here with utter coolness: there is no inflection, no viewpoint; you're supposed to simply sponge up all the horror. Unfortunately, however, the effect is one of overkill—like a Soviet propaganda film about the murderous effects of too much wealth. And you never experience revulsion, only eventual boredom. In sum: a flat Cook's tour of kiddie-depravity in Lotusland—with a pounding beat, no zing, and only some marginal voyeur-interest for the insatiably curious.
Pub Date: May 1, 1985
ISBN: 0679781498
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1985
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
