Strange and carnal; a riddle of language, the body, and the artistic impulse.
A murky, dreamlike collage of corporeal escape and sexual fantasy.
Moskovich’s debut novel opens with a mysterious, unexplained room full of “Natashas”—women who’ve abandoned their own names and whose existences are woven through this discontinuous story of two artists. Moskovich writes of Béatrice, a shapely jazz singer who lives with her sister and parents, and César, a Mexican-born actor living in Paris. Béatrice’s body is sexualized from an early age; her family and friends—even her father—tease her, calling her "Miss Monroe” or "Miss Marilyn." This sexualization is echoed by the insertion of chapters about the Natashas, who also exist as both caricatures and sex objects. While César is disappearing dangerously deep into the characters he plays, using the violent back stories he creates for his parts to drive his own courage, Béatrice is visited by a woman named Polina, who tells her, “There are people who leave their bodies and their bodies go on living without them....These people are named Natasha.” Readers looking for a traditional story without gaps will be disappointed, but the mystery surrounding a woman from César’s past and the purpose of the Natashas propels this tale forward. Are the Natashas muses? Prostitutes? An otherworldly entity? Is Béatrice going to become one of them? And how are they connected to her vocal gift? Moskovich’s perspective on language is one of the most interesting parts of this novel. “In Russian, you don’t have to go missing,” she writes. “It’s a single verb. The verb sits next to your name and you’re gone.” At times, the story is hard to follow, but the collective effect of Moskovich’s images is strangely captivating. The novel builds to a somewhat unexpected ending that is, if not satisfying, at least provocative.
Strange and carnal; a riddle of language, the body, and the artistic impulse.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945814-48-8
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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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