The result is a reading experience that carries the impact of an Ingmar Bergman film based on a novel by Thomas Mann. It’s...
The ordeals and sacrifices of two remarkable women are analyzed with penetrating intensity in the Swedish master’s latest.
Following the method employed throughout his oeuvre, and with particular success in his recent fictions The Royal Physician’s Visit (2001) and Lewi’s Journey (2005), Enquist connects his own history and sensibility to the stories of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Marie Curie and her ill-fated research assistant (and eventual soulmate), Blanche Wittman. Those stories are told in three “Books” composed by Blanche after her lethal exposure to radiation, both during Mme. Curie’s experiments and in earlier years when she was a patient treated for “hysteria” by eminent neurologist J.M. Charcot, and also his assistant, then his adulterous lover. Moving backward and forward in time, Enquist presents Blanche’s ruminations on her treatment at Saltpêtriére Hospital (a filthy, overcrowded “black castle in the middle of Paris”), where she became a de facto emblem of the “madness” of love; Polish-born Marie Curie’s self-destructive affair with a married scientist, which evoked outraged anti-Semitic protests and drove her from France; and the sad final years of both women, when Marie became a disgraced outsider in the land where she had earned unprecedented honors, and Blanche a (still sentient, forever impassioned) torso “living” in a wooden cart. In a masterly display of concision, Enquist packs an imposing enormity of historical and scientific information into a searching exploration of the phenomenon of love; a complex meditation on the riddles that challenge his characters’ ingenuity—how do we manage to love, given the fragility and impermanence of the body, and how can human emotion and experience be measured and quantified, much less comprehended?
The result is a reading experience that carries the impact of an Ingmar Bergman film based on a novel by Thomas Mann. It’s astonishing, and it’s unforgettable.Pub Date: March 23, 2006
ISBN: 1-58567-668-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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