A first novel from Treichel, a well-known German poet and critic, turns a fragmented family’s arduous search for its missing son into an eerie and perversely amusing metaphysical puzzle. The nameless narrator, a boy of indeterminate age, lives with his parents in a village near the Polish border—and with the knowledge that he is both their only child and the child they love least. For an older brother, Arnold, he eventual learns, was “lost” during WWII when, fleeing the invading Russian army, Arnold’s terrified mother had impulsively passed her baby to another woman—who immediately disappeared into a crowd, never to be seen again. Years later, the narrator observes with mingled resentment and fear the efforts of his still-traumatized mother and businesslike father (a prosperous meat wholesaler) to determine, through genetic testing, whether an anonymous orphan—designated “foundling 2307” and said to bear an “amazing likeness” to their other son—is indeed the missing Arnold. Treichel stretches this intriguing premise into a wry psychodrama focused on the narrator’s increasing confusions about his own identity, confusions that are nicely balanced by satirical glimpses of officialese red tape and impersonality (the family’s visit to Heidelberg’s Forensic Anthropology Institute is a deadpan-comic nightmare worthy of Kafka). After a somewhat stodgy beginning riddled with affected redundancy (virtually an entire page is consumed by the narrator’s reiterated objections to being “squeezed” by his mother), the novel moves with impressive swiftness toward a chilling surprise ending triggered by several unanticipated reversals (the narrator’s passive mother becomes the family spokesperson; her decision to adopt foundling 2307, no matter whether he is or isn’t Arnold, is thwarted; and the narrator’s fear of being displaced by the brother his parents really want is assuaged—in a way he cannot have foreseen). A gripping and resonant parable, done with remarkable economy, subtlety, and finesse.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-40627-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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