A flawed attempt to illuminate an extraordinary historical moment; the fumbling translation is no help.
The Chilean author (The Dancer and the Thief, 2008, etc.) uses two perspectives for this skimpy take on the twilight of the Pinochet dictatorship.
In 1973, Gen. Pinochet seized power in Chile and began a reign of terror. Fifteen years later, the population is cowed and apathetic; there are still 3,000 missing detainees. Make that 3,001, for the novel begins with the arrest of professor Santos, philosophy teacher at Santiago’s most prestigious high school. His son Nico and his classmates watch helplessly as he’s taken from the classroom. Meanwhile, Adrián Bettini, father of Nico’s girlfriend, Patricia, is summoned by Fernández, the Interior minister. Bettini has reason to be fearful; he has been blacklisted, jailed and tortured. Today will be different. Pinochet has decided to hold an above-board referendum with a simple question: Do you want him to stay in office? A “no” vote will lead to a multiparty election. (All this is historically accurate.) Fernández invites Bettini, once Chile’s best ad man, to head the “yes” ad campaign. Bettini declines; he will work for the “no” campaign that’s been granted 15 minutes on state-run television. Fifteen minutes against 15 years; it’s a challenge, just as it’s a challenge for Nico to find his father. Skármeta flips between the two stories as he struggles to decide whether to emphasize the continuing horrors of Pinochet’s rule or the glimmer of light of the “no” campaign. After Nico is shown the dead body of his beloved English teacher, a leftist, his throat cut, the author switches to the zany antics of the “no” campaign. Whether it’s the catchy jingle or the rainbow logo, the “no” campaign prevails, the citizenry rejoices, and Santos is freed after strings are pulled. For Nico and Patricia, it’s a triple: the end of virginity, of high school and of the dictatorship.
A flawed attempt to illuminate an extraordinary historical moment; the fumbling translation is no help.Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59051-627-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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