Banville, the English novelist who fictionalized the life of one classical astronomer in the modestly impressive Doctor Copernicus (1976), now turns to another: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)—seen here as a long-sufferer, a victim of religious persecution, a husband with complaining wives (especially first wife Barbara, fat and harping), the son of an accused witch. . . and a court mathematician who's most often called on to make up detestable horoscopes. An outcast from Graz in Austria, the penniless Kepler is taken in by Tycho Brahe in the Dane's Bohemian castle, and is "swaddled in the folds of a personality larger far and madder than his own." Tycho's retinue is disorderly and disreputable, the old man himself rude and spiteful and vain—but Kepler holds onto his position: "For he knew now that Mars was the key to the secret of the workings of the world. He felt himself suspended in tensed bright air, a celestial swimmer." And, after Tycho's death (and those of Kepler's wife and children), Kepler still labors on, a sort of Job figure—as he acquires a greater system (harmony of the heavens) if no proportional increase in respect. (Galileo, for instance, either shuns or toys with him.) Banville is a rich writer, his language pleasingly and solidly ornate; but the book's first section—Kepler in Tycho's castle—is the only one that really involves. In subsequent sections, as was the case with much of Dr. Copernicus, the novel descends to mere exposition—excessively dependent on letters and flashbacks. So, while unusually well-written, this historical novel loses its thrust about halfway through, becoming centerless, retrospective, and sometimes flatly crammed with facts.
Pub Date: April 26, 1983
ISBN: 0679743707
Page Count: -
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1983
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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