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THE HELMET OF HORROR

Name: THE HELMET OF HORROR
Author: Victor Pelevin
ISBN: 1-84195-760-7

THE MYTH OF THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR

by Victor Pelevin & translated by Andrew Bromfield ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2006

Admirers of Pelevin’s fiction should attempt it. But it’s too much of a maze—and there’s nothing to show the way out.

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The classical myth is reinterpreted with black-comic brio in this odd new novel from the internationally acclaimed Russian author (The Life of Insects, 1998, etc.).

Marketed as “Mythology” (and part of Canongate’s ongoing series “The Myths”), it’s a computer-age consideration of the meanings incarnated in the Greek adventurer Theseus, the monstrous (half-man, half-bull) Minotaur and the maze in which they meet. The novel’s form is an extended conversation taking place in an Internet chat room, among several e-mailers who are themselves confined within individual mazes that appear to be parts of an encompassing labyrinth. At least this is the eventually shared opinion of Ariadne (the Greek maiden whose clever placement of a thread guided Theseus in and out of his maze), aging Lothario Romeo-y-Cohiba, computer geek Nutscracker, booze-obsessed materialist Sartrik, sex-obsessed IsoldA (a self-described combination of the Mona Lisa and Monica Lewinsky) and others. Is the Minotaur the creation of Asterisk, a “boundlessly and infinitely powerful being” avenging himself on humans who had turned against him? Or something that exists only in the “chatters’” heads?—or are they what the beast itself imagines and dreams? Pelevin evidently enjoys himself more than most readers will, toying with theoretical possibilities while analyzing the nature of such mazes as that in an “amusement arcade,” the Roman catacombs, the gardens at Versailles, penitential labyrinths dug beneath churches and cathedrals and—of course—the Internet itself. Random clues suggest a satire on the “monstrous” commercialism and criminality that toppled the U.S.S.R. and labored puns liken computer “savers” to saviours (is Pelevin after all Russia’s Thomas Pynchon?). But it’s all exposition and explication, and it’s tiresome.

Admirers of Pelevin’s fiction should attempt it. But it’s too much of a maze—and there’s nothing to show the way out.

Pub Date: April 18, 2006

ISBN: 1-84195-760-7

Page Count: 275

Publisher: Canongate

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF
by Victor Pelevin & translated by Andrew Bromfield

- BOOK REVIEW
HOMO ZAPIENS
by Victor Pelevin & translated by Andrew Bromfield

- BOOK REVIEW
BUDDHA'S LITTLE FINGER
by Victor Pelevin & translated by Andrew Bromfield

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.