A novel that glosses over some aspects of Swift’s life but adroitly portrays the world in which he made his mark.
Tucker (On a Darkling Plain, 2014) presents a work of historical fiction based on the life of the legendary Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift.
At the outset of the story, set around 1676, famed satirist Swift is a precocious 9-year-old who’s being flogged for acting up in school. The youngster may be talented in Latin and Greek, but he’s also quite the prankster. Swift is 16 when he goes off to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where his passions include poetry, flirting, and, of course, more pranks. He graduates in 1686 with the embarrassing distinction on his diploma that he did so only “by special grace.” His precocity remains when he goes on to work for the writer Sir William Temple before striking out on his own. Swift becomes an Anglican priest, and in this role, he learns much about the poverty of Ireland. He earns a doctorate in divinity in 1702 and takes his talents to London, where he becomes a thorny satirist, unafraid of ruffling feathers. After gaining notoriety in the English capital, Swift goes back to Dublin, where he does his most famous work, including penning the novel Gulliver’s Travels and harshly criticizing English-Irish relations. Throughout Swift’s journey, readers are kept abreast of his love affairs—particularly his long, complicated relationship with a woman named Hetty Johnson, whom he called “Stella.” The book also details Swift’s associations with famous figures, such as Alexander Pope. Readers come to understand how Swift’s “talent makes him powerful” and to appreciate the dichotomy of a man who loved both God and ribald humor. Tucker’s version of the Swift story sometimes unfolds rather quickly, but at others, it’s a rather slow burn. For instance, the author extensively examines Swift’s awkward romantic relationships, but he gives some other elements short shrift, including the years that Swift spent getting his doctorate, for instance. This choice will leave readers with some questions about Swift’s life, although it does allow the book to focus on how the writer was perceived by others, exposing multiple facets of his famous persona. For example, Tucker presents a man who eloquently championed the poor but also once brutally beat his servant in a fit of rage. What truly steals the show here, though, is the author’s consideration of the time period that produced the famous figure that we know today. Swift’s writing was risky, but he was able to publish it anonymously; the publishers who printed it, however, could not hide behind false names, and as a result, they were open to reprimand. Modern readers in the United States, who are used to saying just about anything they like, will find that this book offers a deep exercise, indeed, imagining a world of dire consequence for satire. Swift’s success shows the triumph of the pen over the sword, but Tucker’s text dutifully reminds readers of just how dangerous that process was.
A novel that glosses over some aspects of Swift’s life but adroitly portrays the world in which he made his mark.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-60489-220-8
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© 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.
