Combining history, fairy tale, and period literary fashions, Sherman (the paperback Through a Brazen Mirror) offers a sprawling 18th-century epic that could be improved with some 20th-century editing. The narrator is the loyal no-nonsense Berthe Duvet, personal maid to the woman who becomes the Duchess of Malvoeux on her marriage to the duke of a beautiful duchy in the Jura mountains of France. Like Camelot, the chateau of the duchy exists out of time: 200 years have passed since the French Revolution, a perilous time for the ducal family when the chateau was sacked and the lands destroyed, but a magic spell has since turned it into a ``fairy kingdom'' where every need is served by ``creatures of magic,'' the weather never varies, and the Baroque palace is filled to the ``rafters with a most sumptuous profusion of treasures.'' A certain Colette, whose short life played a decisive role in the fate of the Malvoeux family, suggests that Berthe write the history of the chateau. And this Berthe proceeds to do, beginning with her childhood in Paris, her service with the young duchess, and their move to this chateau filled with objects collected by a family driven by a passion to possess—a passion that has not escaped the current duke, who collects exotic birds. Meanwhile, French history is also moving at a fast clip, and Berthe adds at length her impressions of those stirring times. She soon learns that there's something dark in the family past. A beggar appears to remind the family of his curse—a curse to be removed only when a white porcelain bird is found. The search is joined, past crimes are finally revealed, the curse is lifted—only to be replaced with a more benign but no less confining enchantment. A dazzling display of period detail, and a slew of authentic- seeming characters—but all disappointingly held in thrall to a narrative that lumbers on to a by-now-longed-for end.
Pub Date: May 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93608-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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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