Jungk’s beautiful, uncanny work breaks new ground in stories about fathers and sons.
A traffic jam prompts a stirring meditation on family, faith and intellect.
Dour Viennese furrier Gustav is en route by car to his house outside New York, where his wife and children are waiting for him. The pressure’s on to arrive before sunset; he’s recently converted to Orthodox Judaism, much to the frustration of his mother Rosa. Much to Gustav’s frustration, Rosa is with him as he drives, lecturing him about everything from his choice of wife to his choice of rental car. Worse, they’ll be stuck together for a while, as a chemical spill on the Tappan Zee Bridge brings traffic to a halt. Jungk (Tigor, 2004, etc.) slows down the narrative at that moment, suggesting a Nicholson Baker-esque study of the minutiae of living with gridlock. But when Gustav steps out of the car to look at the Hudson River, an unusual thing happens: He sees the enormous naked body of his late father, Ludwig, lying across the river’s banks. It’s patently absurd, but Jungk masterfully captures the confusion the image creates in Gustav’s and Rosa’s minds, as well as the vaguely unsettled feeling it arouses in others on the bridge. (They don’t see the “fatherbody” but sense something odd about the river.) Ludwig was a famous scientist—importantly, his major text was titled Fusion—and as Gustav walks across the bridge he ponders the connection between his father’s body and his life. The sight of Ludwig’s penis recalls memories of his infidelities; his stomach evokes his intestinal illnesses; and, finally, his mind evokes his intellectual force. Jungk shows just how tightly knit the relationship was and is between Gustav and his parents, and though the tone is muted throughout, the overall feeling is one of uplift, affirmation of the deep bonds that connect the family. The presence of his father’s body on the river, however strange, doesn’t confuse and complicate Gustav’s life—it clarifies it.
Jungk’s beautiful, uncanny work breaks new ground in stories about fathers and sons.Pub Date: March 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59051-275-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Handsel/Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
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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