For fans of the books of Neil Gaiman, the films of M. Night Shyamalan, and similar fabulisms.
“A modesty of appetite represents a paucity of heart”: a sometimes bibulous, occasionally violent, well thought through modern take on folkloric storytelling.
Lucien Minor isn’t a hobbit, but he’s fond of pipes all the same. Or at least the idea of a pipe, the object on which deWitt’s (The Sisters Brothers, 2011) opening paragraphs rest and that Lucy, as he’s called, hopes will become a suitable extension of his person, something that will contribute to his odd comeliness—for though sickly and pasty-faced, “there was something pretty about him, too.” Lucy’s prettiness and gender-hopping name has bearing on this odd tale, which has other hobbit-y aspects but, though a fairy tale for adults, not much of Tolkien’s world-embracing earnestness. Lucy isn’t long for the teeny town of Bury (a hobbit-y Anglo-Saxon word, that, meaning “fortified place”): unable to bear his mother’s seeming conviction that, unintentionally or no, he’s sent his poor dad to an early grave, 17-year-old Lucy finds employment in the castle of a certain Baron Von Aux. There the tale shifts, subtly, from Tolkien to Stoker with a dash of Conan Doyle, but with plenty of humorous touches. The Baron isn’t much seen, for, as another member of the household instructs Lucy, “it’ll be months before you lay eyes on the man, if you lay eyes on him.” But is that really because the Baron is locked away brooding, or are more sinister forces in play? DeWitt’s yarn is playful and pleasing, though decidedly minor; we’ve seen some of it in Brigadoon, some in The Princess Bride, some in the collected works of Douglas Adams, and it seems something of a throwaway in light of the author’s proven abilities. Still, it’s a sometimes-subversive and smart entertainment that blends lighthearted moments with more thoughtful reckonings of the human condition: “I have suffered through an era of unluckiness,” indeed.
For fans of the books of Neil Gaiman, the films of M. Night Shyamalan, and similar fabulisms.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-228120-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
PROFILES
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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