Moments here of fairytale charm, but the air at such high spiritual altitudes may be too rarefied for many Western readers.
Romantic and spiritual love in ancient China occupy this latest (The River Below, 2000, etc.) from the distinguished Chinese author long resident in France.
The story takes place toward the end of the Ming Dynasty (early 17th century), when crime and corruption are rampant. One victim is our protagonist Dao-sheng. As a young violinist, part of a theater troupe, he dares to exchange glances and smiles with the beautiful Lan-ying, betrothed to the tyrannical Second Lord Zhao, who promptly condemns Dao-sheng to exile and slave labor. No matter: those few transforming moments were enough to convince Dao-sheng, a Taoist, that his and Lan-ying’s fates are linked by the shen, the most vital of all spiritual essences. Thirty years pass. The now-grizzled Dao-sheng is a healer and soothsayer who has been living in a mountainside Taoist monastery, and the time is ripe for another approach to Lan-ying. He travels to her city and sets up shop outside a Buddhist temple she frequents. The opportunity comes for Dao-sheng to minister to the sickly Lan-ying, who has been discarded by Second Lord after two miscarriages, forcing her to live in lonely isolation. The invalid remembers the former musician—they are indeed soulmates—and her joy over their reunion is as great as his. Dao-sheng restores her to health and to her former beauty. The contacts between them are delicate and restrained, climaxing with a joining of hands under a full moon, whereupon “the lovers floated into a separate state,” a phrase unfortunately banal-sounding in this translation from the French. Eventually, Second Lord, deathly ill himself after years of debauchery, figures out the situation. He tries to strangle Lan-ying but dies in the process, and she retreats to a convent while Dao-sheng returns to the monastery, sustained by his faith in their undying devotion.
Moments here of fairytale charm, but the air at such high spiritual altitudes may be too rarefied for many Western readers.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-31574-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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