by Shifra Horn & translated by H. Sacks ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2001
A lively tale of magical realism that occasionally stumbles in attempting to wow you, offering a rather superficial analysis...
Birth, death, three husbands, eight children, and a few grumpy ghosts are just some of the details in the grand life of Rosa, courtesy of Israeli novelist Horn (Four Mothers, 1999, etc.).
Rosa is born during Israel’s War of Independence, and her fantastical life begins shortly after the murder of her father. Raised by the thin, dour Angela, who makes a tidy living by reading her neighbors’ coffee grounds, young Rosa first finds fame as the most beautiful baby born to the new state. Salons rename a hairstyle for her perfect blond ringlets; strangers on the street stare at her loveliness. She lives a charmed life, though not untouched by the tragedies of the greater world: her best childhood friend is a Holocaust survivor (she learns arithmetic from the numbers tattooed on his arm), and she’s haunted by the little Arab girl whose usurped house she now lives in. At 14, she marries her uncle Joseph, and, despite the unusual union, they share a happy life and raise seven children. When their eighth is born, Rosa is in her 50s, and she makes headlines again, but her daughter Angel is hunchbacked and will never grow in size past the age of two, fulfilling Rosa’s secret wish that her children stay small forever. In accordance with a childhood game that predicted Rosa would have four husbands, Joseph falls into a decline and soon dies after seeing the deformed Angel. Husband number two, a childhood sweetheart, dies in a bizarre accident involving Rosa’s again-newsworthy weight gain; husband three is an artist seeking to paint the country’s most famous woman. Rosa’s zest for life, food, and sex ease the anguish of her husbands’ deaths (their ghosts are in bed with her at night), but it’s Angel, perhaps a demon of bad luck, who challenges Rosa’s will to live.
A lively tale of magical realism that occasionally stumbles in attempting to wow you, offering a rather superficial analysis of its hero. Still, an entertaining folly.Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26590-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
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by Shifra Horn & translated by Dalya Bilu
by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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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
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edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Chinua Achebe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 1958
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
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