A sharp-edged tale in verse of colonial suppression, resistance, and survival.
An epic poem, much honored in Sweden since its publication in 2018, that charts the fortunes of a Sámi community against opposing nationalisms.
There was a time when Norway and Sweden were united as a single country. The union dissolved in 1905, and eight years later, as Sámi author Axelsson’s epic begins, a boundary is forming between the two that impedes the free movement of a reindeer-herding Arctic community. “Once May Day passed we were allowed to cross the border into Norway,” says one speaker, while “the Swede he dammed // And the river was left / muffled and silent.” In the face of this degradation, where the Sámi are barred from herding grounds, ancient migratory routes are blocked, and villages are swallowed by rising waters, a young man dies accidentally, a ghost whose presence hovers over the generations. He laments to his distraught father: “Didn’t you hear me // Among the seabirds / as you came walking / with your summer-fat / reindeer,” and his grave will forever be unquiet. Fast-forward two generations, and the Sámi have themselves been herded into government villages, their children packed off to boarding schools to be acculturated as Swedes; one matriarch, subjected to that cultural annihilation, recalls questions from her daughter: “Tell me what it / was like at the Nomad School / Mama // I’m supposed to write / an essay about / you in school.” Adds one character, Lise, speaking a century after the epic begins, “And I did not / want to talk about it.” As Axelsson charts the story of the Sámi under colonial rule, the reader will be reminded of the injuries done to Indigenous peoples everywhere. But there is at least some resolution: Axelsson describes present-day Sámi activists fighting to regain control of traditional lands, with young descendants teaching their elders about their culture. Such is the case with another matriarch, Sandra, who’s “Trying / as a grown woman / to learn Sámi / with her children.”
A sharp-edged tale in verse of colonial suppression, resistance, and survival.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593535455
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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