A first appearance in English by the late French writer and early minimalist Bove (Armand, 1987; My Friends, 1986) of a novel published in France in 1945, a few months after his death, that stunningly delineates the eventual heroism of an Everyman. In terse but subtle prose, which only heightens the tension as Bove's luckless hero Joseph Bridet, a journalist, sinks deeper into the quicksand, Bove describes an ordinary man trying to survive in extraordinary times. When the Germans invade France in 1940, Bridet flees with his wife, Yolande, to Vichy France. There, he hopes to pass himself off as a devoted citizen of the collaborationist regime so that he might get a passport to go to Africa, where he can join the Gaullists and fight for France's liberation. But he is unable to sound convincing enough, and his contacts soon suspect his motives. Meanwhile, his own unease grows, and in a series of chilling bureaucratic encounters he decides that he is under suspicion and should return to Occupied France. But Bridet is not safe there either: no one can be trusted; the Germans become suspicious; and he is interned. When German soldiers are killed by the local resistance, Bridet is made one of the hostages. Nervous- -and cowardly all his life—Bridet then has one of ``those simple ideas that, depending on how much of ourselves we put into them, seem either inspired or insignificant. It suddenly restored strength to him. The idea was that, whatever he might do, he could no longer escape death, and that, since he must, he might as well die bravely. And this is what he did.'' The Kafkaesque dealings with the bureaucracy, all laconically detailed, and the hero's inevitable death with its stunning but almost offhand epitaph make this a book of quiet but tremendous presence. A small masterpiece.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1991
ISBN: 0-910395-69-1
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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