Published successfully in Germany in 2003, the novel arrives freshly translated by the reliable Steven T. Murray, who did...
Denis Diderot, hero of the Enlightenment, battles dark forces galore, in novelist Prange’s U.S. debut.
A bunch of the boys were whoopin’ it up in the Café Procope—philosophers, free-thinkers, assorted roisterers and rabble-rousers—when suddenly a great idea was born. It’s Paris, 1746, the Café Procope, an established hang-out for France’s young-gun intellectuals. A publisher is in the house this particular night, and it’s he who first mentions that high-octane word: encyclopedia, though at the time it hardly seems all that explosive. The publisher views it modestly enough, but the effect on a certain restless spirit is electrifying. Diderot, writer, visionary, ambitious to his eyeteeth, sees it as an opportunity to collect in one place all the accumulated knowledge of humankind, a kind of utilitarian dictionary, addressing and defining everything on earth from astronomy to zithers. But it’s an idea that quickly generates jumpiness in the corridors of power. Shrewdly, Father Radominsky, a Jesuit priest sent to France as confessor to Louis XV’s Queen Maria, connects the epic quality of the Encyclopedia with anti-establishment skepticism. He’s right, of course, and so the time-honored struggle between rebellion and repression, between the status quo and that which attacks it, is joined once again, neither side giving an inch. As a bloodied but unbowed Diderot courageously taunts: “It is my job to write books, and yours to burn them.” Plagued, however, by censorship, money and priestly problems, Diderot, at his lowest ebb, is saved only by the boundless love of a truly good woman, who may in fact be too good to be true.
Published successfully in Germany in 2003, the novel arrives freshly translated by the reliable Steven T. Murray, who did Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Despite some soapy bits, it deserves to score with American audiences, too.Pub Date: April 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4391-6748-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
