Fragmentation and disintegration—in the body politic and in the realm of human relations’seem to be the themes of this frustratingly cryptic debut novel by the prizewinning young German author (stories: 33 Moments of Happiness, 1998). Schulze employs a structure similar to that of his collection. Here, we get a piecemeal portrayal, in 29 interrelated chapters (each prefaced by a brief summary of its contents), of a dozen or so inhabitants of the town of Altenburg, in the decade (the 1990s) following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s supposed “reunification.” Each chapter presents a conversation or confrontation, begun in medias res, involving two or more Altenburgers whose daily lives and destinies are entwined in ways that are only gradually—and even then incompletely—made clear to the reader. For example, we’re introduced to Renate Meurer and her depressive, unemployable second husband Ernst during their vacation in Italy before we hear about her former husband, a physician whose political allegiances provoked their separation, or about Renate’s son Martin, a widower still mourning his wife’s death in a traffic accident and incapable of raising their two sons—the younger of whom lives with Danny, a journalist—whose rocky relationship with Edgar, an ex-Communist Youth activist turned “ad rep” echoes several other stalled or combative marriages, love affairs, and family situations. The story’s best moments are those that express its central concerns with either dramatic directness (as in the case of Doctor Barbara Hotlitzschek, married to a politician too cautious to condemn even neo-Nazi violence) or with wry symbolism (the accident-prone trials of “wannabe writer” Heinrich “Enrico” Friedrich, who “had come to . . . [the] realization that nobody wanted to read his stuff, and . . . thrown himself head over heels down the stairs”). A first novel that impresses with its cleverness, but ultimately disappoints: Schulze has neglected to create characters interesting enough to make us care what happens to them.
Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-40541-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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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