A Zola-esque naturalism is the strong suit of a novel that is more than just a period piece.
The first English language publication of this German author’s 1933 autobiographical first novel; Keilson (1909-2011) charts the slow decline of a shopkeeper in the Weimar Republic.
Life has been an uphill struggle for Herr Seldersen, as he is called. He started out as a traveling salesman before setting up his clothing store. Then came the Great War. He survived unharmed, but the decorated veteran next had to deal with the nightmare of hyperinflation. In 1928, when the novel opens, the economy has steadied somewhat, but there are still challenges. His landlord and competitor has his eye on his store and pressures Seldersen to move into less-attractive premises. A good-hearted, unambitious man, he cherishes his small town in Prussia, eastern Germany, but peace and quiet are elusive for this German counterpart of Willy Loman. He is caught in a vise between his demanding suppliers and his impoverished customers, buying on credit. It’s death by a thousand cuts. There’s no disguising the situation from his wife or his 16-year-old son, Albrecht. The details about bills of exchange can get boring, but there is real pathos in his son’s attempt to console his father (“old, lost, hopeless”). Albrecht’s coming-of-age, and that of his best friend, Fritz, is the secondary storyline. Fritz is a free spirit, a high-school dropout with soaring ambitions who will be crushed by the lack of opportunity. The more restrained Albrecht, meanwhile, is strongly influenced by a young judge, who believes in the life of the mind.
A Zola-esque naturalism is the strong suit of a novel that is more than just a period piece.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-374-19195-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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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