Another straw in the wind suggesting a new trend in novels of spiritual import. Leslie Greener's No Time To Look Back (Viking) —published last Spring — was a significant and moving novel in this genre. Now comes the new Nevil Shute, showing advance in power over a rather fumbling handling of the spiritual impinging on the material in his No High- — almost, in this new book, a successful achievement. In both books, flying plays a vital part; in both, the mechanic is the central figure rather than the pilot. Here he uses the time honored Servant in The House motif. As Tom Cutter tells the story, the reader identifies himself with Cutter recurrently glimpsing divinity in the chief mechanic, half-caste, British-Chinese, more Atlantic than British in his spiritual values. Cutter didn't want to believe his friend and associate in the burgeoning commercial flying venture in the Persian Gulf area was anything but human. But he knew that his spiritual message to the mechanics in the air strips all through the East had made better men as well as better craftsmen of them all. He knew that the man himself was looked upon as Prophet and Teacher, by Buddhists, Muslims, Hindoos, and those countless fringe religions of the East. He knew that through him taboos of race and creed were being overcome. He knew the legend was growing, though the man himself did not seek it. He knew that the conservative British were afraid — and he moved Shaklin on to Bali; then the Dutch, too, became fearful, as planeloads of pilgrims sought his blessing. Finally, when fatal illness belied his divinity, the message he carried still dominated, and with his death the question, though still insoluble, hung in the air — and the legend, with its valued concomitant of worship through skills, grew and strengthened. Perhaps this is Shute's most important book, though not on the level of straight story. At times difficult, at times technical, at times distasteful to those who pigeonhole religion as apart from daily life- there is nonetheless that emphasis on seeking spiritual values which is a trend in modern fiction not to be overlooked.
Pub Date: Jan. 31, 1950
ISBN: 1741211557
Page Count: 435
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1950
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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