Even though Ferrell’s exploration of identity comes up short, that’s a small blemish on this artfully barbed entertainment.
He’s an accident-prone amnesiac, the lead, but his inability to feel pain brings him celebrity; Ferrell’s eye-catching debut is a mordant take on contemporary culture.
Out of the sandstorm he stumbles, this skinny young man with the bleeding head wound, into some circus tents near the Texas highway. There’s no sign of a wreck; what happened is a mystery, for the guy has lost his memory. “I’m numb,” he says. No pain for Numb, his new name, and some gain for Mr. Tilly, sleazy owner of this bankrupt circus; Numb becomes their star attraction, hammering nails into himself. Next step: some time in the lion’s cage. The one person concerned for his welfare is Mal, the fire-eating machete juggler. Numb survives, with deep claw marks in his thigh, and he and Mal travel to New York, where Mal has Numb continue his lucrative act. Mal is variously friend, exploiter and rival; that last role leads to his spectacular demise. Soon Numb acquires a savvy talent agent who hooks him up (“cross-promotion”) with the Japanese Hiko, a hot downtown sculptor. She’s blind; doing his casts, she’s fascinated by his scarred skin texture. They become lovers (Hiko’s initiative); Numb moves in with her. The buzz grows. Hiko has a splashy opening; Numb does TV commercials and is on Dave. Though it lacks the exhilarating strangeness of the circus, this world of surfaces is a perfect fit for a freak without a past; that past becomes irrelevant as Numb’s actions define his character. While drawn to danger, he’s basically passive, and stupidly self-destructive, cheating on Hiko with a beautiful model he’s been warned will use and discard him. Only near the end, in Los Angeles, where he’s set to star in his life story (“a reality formula”), does he rebel against his handlers and the sleaze they’re peddling.
Even though Ferrell’s exploration of identity comes up short, that’s a small blemish on this artfully barbed entertainment.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-194650-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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
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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