Nicholas Kraven, the middle-aged British protagonist of Isler's savagely funny second novel (after The Prince of West End Avenue, 1994), would seem to have it made. He has an undemanding job as a lecturer in English literature at Mosholu College in the Bronx, classrooms of stolid students to hector, patronize (and, when a particularly alluring young woman catches his eye, seduce), and a longstanding adulterous liaison with a highly inventive neighbor. There are, of course, the occasional indignities: He must turn out scholarly articles and even appear to take seriously the seemingly crackbrained discovery of an elderly student (that Merlin was not only a historical figure but a Jew). Still, life isn't bad. And then, in an instant, it turns hilariously awful. His lover's husband deserts her. He adapts his student's idea about Merlin, taking credit for it himself, at first receives extraordinary praise, then is reviled as a plagiarist. Worst, in a deft moment that sends the novel soaring in an audacious new direction, Kraven is revealed to be an impostor. Raised in England in an extended family of German Jewish ÇmigrÇs, Kraven could in fact never afford to attend a university. When the loathsome cousin he had helped through school died, just before embarking for America, Kraven had usurped his job and his name. Now, he flees home, returning to London only to discover that his enemies and his past are not so easily eluded. Isler has a wonderful appetite for satire: his portraits of prissy academics, boorish students, and smarmy administrators are unsparing, convincing, and very funny. But his talent can equally meet the demands of sensitively portraying Kraven's suffering as, back home, he begins painfully to sift through the ruins of his life, the identity he artfully constructed and the older identity he fled. This sly comedy becomes, in the end, a subtle, profoundly moving meditation on identity and responsibility: an ambitious, stirring work by a very promising young writer.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-882593-13-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bridge Works
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
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
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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