The boys are almost too silly to believe, but Mary’s an excellent guide on the faintly ridiculous road that leads eventually...
The healthy lusts of an aimless young woman do battle with the overwrought imaginations of two young men who would be guardians of the Beat movement.
Mid-’90s suburban London is the setting, but “Jack” and “Neal” pine for midcentury America and the days of Kerouac and Cassidy in whose honor they have shed their baptismal names. Litt (Corpsing, 2001, etc.) cheekily narrates as the smart but rather at loose ends Mary, who, like Neal and Jack still lives at home despite being well past school age. Encountering the lads at what she thought would be a party, Mary stumbles into their meditation session and quickly develops a huge crush on handsome Jack while Neal gets a huge crush on her. She also makes a firm enemy of Maggie, current top chick in this tiny Beatnik revival movement. Mary, far from keen on the ’50s hipster business, is nevertheless willing to join the scene if it means being near Jack. The rules are, however, tricky and a little tiresome. Jack insists on conducting their lives as if the ’50s were still ticking, reading nothing other than the Beat canon, and even writing in that style. Soon, though, Mary realizes it is Neal who can really write. Jack does the usual Tortured Young Man stuff that morphs into wretched garage rock. She also realizes that if she’s ever to loosen Maggie’s death grip on Jack, she’ll need to capitalize on Neal’s affection for her. Which, with semi-honorable reluctance, she does. And then things get really tricky. As the only one with the use of a car, Mary is pleased to transport the lot to Brighton, where they will work on their newspaper and on the works of Otto Lang, a dead Beat poet. Maggie, furious at Mary’s participation, bails out, leaving the field clear. But the route to Jack’s loins is traveled with trusty Neal alongside all the way. Say, weren’t Kerouac and Cassidy. . . ?
The boys are almost too silly to believe, but Mary’s an excellent guide on the faintly ridiculous road that leads eventually to San Francisco.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-09-926839-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
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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