An emotionally charged and beautifully constructed novella from the acclaimed Spanish author of City of Marvels (1988) and The Truth About the Savolta Case (1992). Initially set in the 1950s in a small town in the province of Barcelona, it's the story of Sister Consuela, a young nun recently appointed Mother Superior of her convent, which operates a charity hospital and hopes to establish an old people's home. During her several visits to the mountaintop home of Don Augusto AixelÖ, a wealthy landowner who had opposed Republican rebels throughout the country's civil war and thereafter prospered, the Sister finds herself tolerating, even enjoying the rakish urbanity of the nobleman from whom she seeks financial help, and eventually, to her mingled joy and despair, falling in love with him. Attempting to atone for her lapses, Sister Consuela is forcibly brought into the presence of Don Augusto's enemies, and even finds herself joining in a gun battle (``I don't know whether God is putting me to the test, or making fun of me''). Thirty years later, all passions spent, she learns of an ironic conjunction, despite their long separation, of her lover's fate with her own. And, in a moving conclusion worthy of Garc°a M†rquez at his most inspired, we learn exactly what Sister Consuela's past has meant to her and how it has changed—and might have further changed—her life. Mendoza infuses this spare, haunting tale with telling characterizations, vivid descriptions of storms and floods (which foreshadow and parallel the nun's disturbed emotions), and suggestive symbolism (the hulking presences of threatening guard dogs; Sister Consuela's misguided entry into a meat larder where freshly killed game hangs). A brilliantly orchestrated demonstration of the ambiguities of moral action and the variety and depth of human personality—and, not incidentally, a suspenseful and absorbing story as well. A gem.
Pub Date: April 14, 1996
ISBN: 1-86046-044-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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