Only two flaws mar Smith’s delicate comedy: The 50-page “Father Christmas” lacks the shorter adventures’ light touch, and we...
Prof. Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld’s second volume of adventures is bookended by a pair of memorable lectures and a pair of his own obituaries.
“I am always interested in everything,” the mainstay of the Institute for Romance Philology tells his host at the University of Arkansas. All five of these interlinked episodes explore the folly of this singularly imperceptive remark. In the title story, von Igelfeld, prodded by jealousy of his colleagues, seeks an invitation to America only to discover that his host, Prof. R.B. Leflar, thinks he’s a professor of veterinary medicine—a professor, in fact, quite recently deceased—and expects him to give a paper on dachshunds. In “A Leg to Stand On,” Prof. Leflar returns the visit to von Igelfeld in Regensburg, where a sausage dog again plays an unexpectedly prominent role. “On the Couch” sends von Igelfeld first to the same psychiatrist his vengeful colleague Prof. Dr. Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer is consulting, and then, when von Igelfeld outdoes Unterholzer in vindictiveness, to a priestly confessional that’s the comic high point of the volume. “The Bones of Father Christmas,” by far the longest of these stories, unleashes Smith’s wildest inventions, as von Igelfeld is inveigled into taking charge of the sacred relics of St. Nicholas and gets a private audience with the Pope, who otherwise passes his time playing solitaire. Finally, “The Perfect Imperfect” packs him aboard a cruise ship as the only unmarried man bobbing in a sea of hundreds of rapacious widows before he takes matters into his own hands.
Only two flaws mar Smith’s delicate comedy: The 50-page “Father Christmas” lacks the shorter adventures’ light touch, and we never do get to hear the complete text of either of von Igelfeld’s crucial lectures. (Illus. throughout with b&w block prints)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-9508-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
