The slightly revised (and first American) edition of the 1979 Canadian collection of journalistic essays, reviews, columns, and character profiles from the esteemed novelist (The Lyre of Orpheus, 1988, etc.). Readers of Davies' steady stream of novels may be surprised at the sheer volume of journalistic activity here, a large chunk of it predating his international reputation. Grant presents the ink-in-the-veins side of Davies, drawing on pieces the author wrote during his lengthy tenure as an Ontario newspaper editor, as well as his later work in journals as far flung as The Washington Post and TV Guide. Although arranged under three main sections—"Characters," "Books," "Robertson Davies"—the collection is overwhelmingly dominated by book reviews. Nevertheless, Davies is to an extent able to extend the normal life span of a review by extrapolating broadly—from reviews of Nabokov, Cary, Sitwell, and others—into tolerably enduring essays. Of particular note are his musings on a variety of forceful personalities, eccentrics, and cranks—"characters" is the polite designation here—that inspire some of the best writing in this collection. Extra points are in order for Davies' appreciation of Osbert Sitwell ("The aristocrat, in our century of the Common Man, is an underestimated creature. . .") and Dylan Thomas. Fans are likely to note a relationship between the author's connoisseurship of eccentricity here and the sorts of characters that tend to run amok in his novels. Appropriately enough, Davies' fascination for such personalities is capped off with a number of essays organized around his own behavior, and somehow he manages to carry it off: Davies on his own book-collecting vices and life as an editor, in the end, steals the show. A grab bag, but a good one, suitable for browsing while waiting for Davies' next novel.
Pub Date: March 1, 1990
ISBN: 0140126597
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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