If at times the novel suffers from its slightness, its dark conclusion is astonishing in its honesty.
Two women in the film industry, one from New York and the other from Paris, share a close friendship ruptured by trauma.
This is the third book to appear in English from French author, journalist, and film producer Halberstadt (La Petite, 2012, etc.). The narrator, Michèle, who lives in Paris, is writing to her American friend, Molly, who's suffered a brain aneurysm and is in a coma. Entwined with her reaction to her friend’s sudden and prolonged illness, she reflects on the beginning of their friendship—they bonded over absurd demands from Tom Cruise—and recalls highlights from their years of attending international film festivals together. She ruminates on her experience as a working mother and compares it to Molly’s single and singularly focused life; photos of the celebrities Molly's worked with decorate her home more prominently than snapshots of friends and family. References to “a cartoon pinup astride an atomic bomb,” Gloria Swanson's performance as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, and Elton John's singing “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana's funeral characterize Molly as a powerful force at risk of extinction. Molly eventually emerges from her coma, but she apparently will never get to read this account in its entirety: Michèle writes about her husband's infidelity but then excludes those pages from what she intends to show her recovering friend, adding a layer of complexity to the narrative. The adultery and Michèle’s reaction to it are described as banalities to be abhorred, just as she abhors sappy American hospital dramas. This concern with cliché is strangely at odds with prose that is peppered with stock phrases such as “blew me away,” “smokes like a chimney,” and “I stuck to my guns.” This superficial language, however, is cut by darker, more incisive imagery. In remembering the story of Pinocchio ending up in the belly of a whale, Michèle asks of Molly, “Which belly, inside which giant fish have you gotten lost?” and then answers, “But then you’re not a wooden puppet who has to pay for her lies.”
If at times the novel suffers from its slightness, its dark conclusion is astonishing in its honesty.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59051-759-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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