The inevitable finale to a messy, often absorbing saga about the evolution of the dispossessed.
The long, wild ride of France’s most unlikely lothario reaches its lurid climax.
For this third and concluding chapter in the series about the titular vagabond, it seems fitting that Despentes completes the cycle of grief by finally giving her eccentric ensemble a kind of acceptance and maybe even a little peace. As before, this is a sprawling cast of human pinballs, with dozens of characters careening in and out of each other’s lives, cataloged via a roster recounting each character’s current events. Perpetual sad sack Vernon is returning from exile as a changed man facing a very different Paris than he left: “Paris has become hard. Vernon is immediately aware of the pent-up aggression—people are furious, pressed up against each other, ready to come to blows.” In that respect, this entry is very much of its time, visiting its characters’ feverish day-to-day dramas but punctuated by real-life shockwaves, among them the Charlie Hebdo attack, the coordinated terrorist attacks that ended in the Bataclan massacre, and more personal losses like David Bowie. Vernon, meanwhile, has become the somewhat unreliable sage to a group of disciples as well as a popular DJ, dubbed the “shaman of the turntable.” Returning from the relatively safe commune where he and his friends were building a capitalism-free life, Vernon is faced with a dilemma when his old drinking buddy Charles dies, leaving him a fortune but no clue as to how to spend it. The meandering story is characteristically prolonged, but there’s something comforting in visiting each singular arc, be it coke addict Kiko searching for spiritual equilibrium, friends Aïcha and Céleste going underground after avenging the death of Aïcha’s mother, or Laurent Dopalet, the Harvey Weinstein doppelgänger, licking his wounds and plotting revenge. Perhaps it’s because no one here changes much, yet none are immune to the inevitable march of time. Life, in all its chaotic glory, goes on.
The inevitable finale to a messy, often absorbing saga about the evolution of the dispossessed.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-28326-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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