Sophisticated, scholarly fun and games.
Computer games, medieval texts, a corrupt duchess, and library arcana derail a young investment banker from the fast track.
Awfully young meritocratic Yale alum Edward Wozny, having just cleared his New York desk in order to take on a dream assignment in London, accidentally, or perhaps not, encounters the Duke and Duchess of Bowmry as they are decamping from their New York residence. In the weird way of the computer game that follows Edward through his forthcoming adventures, the Bowmrys (family name: Went) are clients of Edward’s employers and owners of a fabulous flat at the top of an otherwise tatty building, an apartment Edward comes to know when his employers inform him that he is to do a bibliosearch for their lordly clients who, when their library was shipped to the States to escape the Nazis, lost track of A Viage to the Contree of the Cimmerians, a book that might not actually exist, or, if it does exist, might be a fake. Edward, under whose Hugo Boss suit beats the heart of the juvenile chess prodigy who burned out at puberty, takes on the quest, enlisting the help of Margaret Napier, a quietly sexy and terribly serious medieval scholar he meets in the library where he’s gone to research the author of the Viage. In his off-hours, when he should be packing for London, Edward ineptly follows the paths of MOMUS, a computer game full of subtle parallels to Edward’s life and the plot of the Viage. Sleep-deprived, confused, but utterly absorbed in his quests, Edward is unwilling to be called off when ordered to quit by the Duke’s emissaries. He is, after all, getting conflicting orders from the very sexy and considerably younger duchess. As in cyberfantasy, there are side trips and narrow escapes and dwarfish types with helpful tips, and if Time book critic Grossman (Warp, 1997) weren’t so smooth and dry, one might think about hitting esc.
Sophisticated, scholarly fun and games.Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-15-101066-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
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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