A major novel of manners, three-fifths completed at the time of Wharton's death in 1937 and published as a fragment in 1938, has now been finished with impressive spirit and skill by Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring. The novel, grand in scope and ambition, is set in Saratoga, Fifth Avenue, and London during the roaring 1870's—Wharton's golden age. It's the slightly helter-skelter story of three newly rich (and, in New York, socially unacceptable) American families who—under the tutelage of a high-spirited Anglo-Italian governess, Miss Testvalley (Testavaglia), a first cousin of Pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti—quickly conquer the upper reaches of English society. (The English aristocracy is drawn to the ``new money'' that Fifth Avenue rejects.) First, Brazilian-American bombshell Conchita Closson marries a disreputable younger son of an English marquis at the races in Saratoga, where Miss Testvalley has just joined the neighboring St. George family as governess. Then- -after a series of social snubs in New York—Conchita and her mother; Virginia St. George and Lizzie Elmsworth (Conchita's best friends); their socially aspiring, somewhat foolish mothers; and Miss Testvalley all set sail for London. There, through Miss Testvalley's offices, the beautiful Virginia St. George marries the respectable elder brother of Conchita's husband, and the dark and wily Lizzie Elmsworth marries a prominent MP. But the ostensible heroine here—and, inadvertently, the most successful social climber of them all—is Virginia's insignificant-looking but kind and intelligent younger sister, Annabel (Nan), who's prevailed upon to marry a socially exalted but utterly unloveable stick of a duke. The novel's last third tracks Nan's decision to divorce the duke, marry her true love—English gentleman Guy Thwarte—and flee with him to Greece. But what Nan never finds out is that her decision robs the deserving, adoring real heroine here, Miss Testvalley, of her own secret late-life lover—Guy's father, who suffers a heart attack on hearing the news about Nan and his son. Not entirely knitted together—some awfully vivid characters just drop from sight—but, still, this is wonderful to read. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-85219-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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