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KINGDOM OF THE WICKED

The Acts of the Apostles meets The Satyricon—with surprisingly leaden results. Burgess' subject is the clash between the early Christians and Imperial Rome in the years between the resurrection of Christ and the destruction of Pompeii; but the pacing is as sluggish as it was in the gaudy but empty TV mini-series A.D. (also written by Burgess), of which this is essentially the novelization. Burgess' narrator is a retired Roman bureaucrat, equally skeptical about the claims of the Christians to eternal life and the claims of the Roman emperors to divinity. This detachment, which is undoubtedly the author's method for avoiding De Millean, non-Biblical sentimentality, nonetheless prevents the novel from ever catching fire—except in the literal sense, when Vesuvius erupts. In fact, the novel's one solid virtue may be its quirky learning—Burgess' conception of the relationship between Roman eros and Christian agape (spiritual love) is often fascinating. Beyond occasional nuggets of scholarship, however, such as the confusion of "Christus" (annointed) with "Chrestus" (cheerful, dutiful—a popular name for a slave, which led the Romans to assume that Christianity was a slave-cult), the novel offers little that rings true—especially in the area of characterization. Burgess' post-Augustan Romans are reminiscent—too reminiscent—of those in Graves' Claudius the God; and his Christians are either crudely stereotyped (doubting Thomas is rendered with a Scottish accent; Peter shudders every time he hears a cock crowing) or downright unpleasant (fanatical St. Paul is the major Christian character). All in all, Burgess has his eye on too many sources this time, some divine and some from pulpier realms—some Bulwer-Lytton here, some Suetonius there, then add a dash of Ben Hur (one central character is a Jewish radical who becomes a gladiator) and perhaps a touch of another mini-series, Masada. Repetition of central ideas and intercutting of Roman and Christian scenes technically pull the novel together, but, if learned, it's lifeless.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1985

ISBN: 0749006722

Page Count: 360

Publisher: Arbor House

Review Posted Online: May 15, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1985

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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