A savage, often unfunny and unfocused adieu to sex—at least as it's practiced in the "permissive society." Jake is a 59-year-old Oxford don (ancient Mediterranean history), and his "thing" is his penis, which has been failing him lately with fat wife Brenda. This problem takes him into the world of flaky psychotherapy. . . and pictorial pornography—since one of the measures recommended by smarmy, boyishly Irish Dr. Rosenberg is the study of dirty pictures "on at least three occasions for a minimum of fifteen minutes at a time. See that this leads to masturbation at least once, preferably twice." Jake finds today's gross porn thoroughly un-erotic; nor is he stimulated much by the rest of Dr. Rosenberg's therapeutic program: "nongenital sensate-focusing," writing out sex fantasies, monitoring sleep-time erections with a "nocturnal mensurator," and enduring the talky-touchy-feely of a "Workshop" encounter group. ("If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's 'Workshop.' After 'Youth,' that is.") But Jake does soon find himself fully functional one surprising night up at Oxford—with an old flame who, though she inspires his quasi-lust, is otherwise a total disappointment: "I mistook her egotism for sparkle. . . her cheap jeering for healthy disrespect. . . ." In fact, Jake realizes how little he cares for women in general—Oxford is being picketed by feminists, Jake's wife takes off with a fatuous friend; and, when Jake's problem is at last diagnosed correctly (a treatable hormone problem), he does a run-down on female foulness and decides to leave well enough alone and remain contentedly impotent. Does all this work—as satire, character comedy, or polemic? Not really. Because Amis' primary targets are a bit dated (in the U.S. anyway) and obvious. Became Jake is an inconsistent alter ego, sometimes a clear mouthpiece (in tirades on today's sexual mores), sometimes a bit of a cartoon himself (in his self-proclaimed chauvinist-pigdom). And because Amis' shot-gun contempt—for illiterate students, bad cafeteria food, etc.—keeps pulling the whole book down to a level of unfocused tetchiness. The Amis prose glitters throughout as shark-toothily as ever, but the Amis bile isn't the geyser it once was-more like a leaky faucet.
Pub Date: June 26, 1980
ISBN: 0140050965
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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