A murky and elliptical descent into darkness.
German writer from the former GDR, Wolf offers her latest intellectual-personal foray (Medea: A Modern Retelling, 1998, etc.): a somber, spare, sensitive treatment of pain, illness and memory.
Having been brought to the hospital by ambulance because of abdominal pain, the unnamed narrator, who moves somewhat ambiguously from first to third person, offers a blow-by-blow testament of her treatment and deteriorating condition. Under the care of the taciturn head of surgery, Herr Chefarzt, and a succession of busy nurses, the patient is left helpless, vulnerable to the invading army around her who “inspect the drains, change the IV bottles, wash and reposition the thing my body is for them.” Laid low by a “runaway body,” the character’s mind cracks under the pain and drugs she’s subjected to, and a long life of memories begins to intrude. She recalls her relationships with a wily fellow East German and perhaps lover, Urban, who moves into high office and subsequently hangs himself in the woods after a crisis of conscience; a colleague and friend from the university, Renate, who loves Urban and is made miserable by him; and Aunt Lisbeth, who, in 1944 Berlin, has a child out of wedlock by a Jew. The patient is enchanted by mythical associations surrounding the name of one of her nurses, Kora Bachmann, who “will lead me into darkness. . . she’ll watch over me, keep an eye on my heartbeat, I’m reassured.” The speaker mines a kind of collective memory of Communist rupture and reinvention, and, lest the reader of English miss her literary and political allusions, the translator has provided a list of endnotes. Wolf deconstructs words such as collapse, cut, and expose, moving from the personal (pathological) definitions to the political. After meeting with Urban in the Underworld, the woman begins to emerge into health and light again, and yet the lasting impression of this work is dour and pedantic.
A murky and elliptical descent into darkness.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-56792-267-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© 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.
