Set in an island nation, the novel drowns under the weight of its own confusing narrative.
A rich and privileged scion of a famous Malagasy family reacquaints himself with his roots after a trying period abroad in Ravaloson’s English language debut.
You can call Ietsy Razak spoiled. His ancestors might have sailed the seven seas to reach the island nation of Malagasy, but once there they established their dominance over generations: “They replaced the original masters of this land, transforming their existence into myth by integrating them, conquering them, or driving them to the wilder ends of the earth. They wound their way into the delicate, tightly interlaced caste system, asserting their dominance by force, alliances, or more often the timely breaking of alliances. They always supported the kingdom’s expansion and took their share of the spoils.” To this day, the Razaks know which side the bread is buttered on. Nevertheless when tragedy strikes close to home, Ietsy’s father packs him off to France, where Ietsy pursues law and continues his spoiled-brat existence: “What are you going to live off of?” a friend asks. “I…am blessed by the Gods and Ancestors,” Ietsy replies. Sure, pal! Such callous pigheadedness is not viable currency for long, and a rather banal incident, which grows out of control, forces Ietsy back to his homeland. By this time, his poor little rich boy act has gotten tiresome. What’s more, the unevenly translated novel also tries to tell the story of Malagasy’s origins, but that plotline turns out to be even more frustrating. “For the Children of the Broken Vow, the original people of the great island—whether they be those of the coasts, Vazimban-driaka; of the forests, Vazimban’ala; of the mountains, Vazimbam-bohitra; or the waters, Vazimban-drano, and later of the savannas, Vazimban-tanety, established where the great Ietsy had sculpted their ancestors—were all forever betrayed by those who came after belatedly answering the Great Ancestor’s call, more greedy and having made no vows, to seize the land of the Vazimbas.” A lot of head-scratching later, the central thesis remains as muddy as ever.
Set in an island nation, the novel drowns under the weight of its own confusing narrative.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9353-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...
An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.
Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad. The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized). As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses). Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture. Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.Pub Date: March 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-70376-4
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
