The fourth novel in Lessing's Canopus in Argus series is the shortest, the simplest, and (though frequently given over to long, lyric/philosophical monologues) the most fable-like. The narrator is Doeg, a "Representative" on Planet 8 who recalls "the times of The Ice"—when the beautiful, temperate little planet (a colony of Canopus) slowly began to freeze to death. Half the planet soon becomes an icy wasteland; the other half, protected by a great black wall, which has been built according to orders from Canopean agent Johor (cf. Shikasta), suffers more gradually. And Joher promises that the people of Planet 8 will eventually be "spacelifted" to paradisical planet Rohanda. So Doeg and the other Representatives labor to keep their weakening, greying people going until salvation comes: there's a harrowing journey to the cold side in search of food sources (the people have had to switch to an all-meat diet); a sacred lake is reluctantly violated—also in search of food; the Representatives go house to house, urging the people to resist torpor, to refrain from crime (which is escalating). But then Johor arrives with the worst of news: there will be no mass spacelift to Rohanda; though the Representatives may be rescued, millions will simply be left to die with the planet. And so—while the lake freezes, the black wall crumbles, and the icy apocalypse approaches—Johor, Doeg, and the other Representatives engage in a colloquy on the nature of existence: the relationship of the individual to all humanity; the elusive, perhaps illusory essence of "meness"; the place of a single life or memory in the endless universe, of a single thought in "this system of fine and finer" particles. None of these ruminations is particularly fresh, of course—and the longwinded exchanges sometimes become droningly static. But often here, with near-Biblical rhythms and imagery (and a spiritual-transfiguration finale), Lessing achieves the sort of primal resonances which weren't possible in the more intricately sociological Canopus books. And this time the ambivalent symbolism—again paternal, hapless Canopus seems to represent both empire-building Britain and God—is more provocative than confusing. (To get really confused, however, read Lessing's afterword—which explains the connections between the last two Canopus novels and Scott's Antarctic expeditions.) So: perhaps the least ambitious or demanding of Lessing's visionary parables—but one with moments of great, dirge-like, roughly poetic power.
Pub Date: Feb. 17, 1981
ISBN: 0006547184
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1981
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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