A very mixed bag indeed, comprising 36 talks and essays (1976-88) and 17 reviews (1977-86), ranging from travel pieces and literary discussions to feminism, commencement addresses, and social-consciousness-raisers. Nonfictional Le Guin is not an easy writer to grapple with: her style veers from mercurial and eclectic through straightforward and banal to wholly elusive. For instance, the essay discussing her famous novel The Left Hand of Darkness ("Is Gender Necessary?") tends to dodge the real issue; a "redux" presented here alongside the original essay clarifies some points but elsewhere muddies the waters still further: in fact, the novel is its own testament, perhaps above interpretation. Essays on narrative, character, and storytelling do good work breaking up old, misogynous categories, only to delineate new, albeit feminist, ones ("The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction," "Heroes," etc.). The travel pieces often pique the interest without breaking any new ground. The reviews, too, suffer from similar encumbrances. Le Guin demolishes Star Wars and Close Encounters as both science fiction and film (an all-too-easy task) without explaining or even acknowledging the movies' vast popularity. Again, she savages C.S. Lewis—he's in a mode where he thoroughly deserves it—but only by comparing him to J.R.R. Tolkien, whom she uncritically admires. Le Guin's unabashed feminism can be an eye-opener, and much of what she has to say is eminently sensible and often penetrating. But all too soon she'll wobble off toward terra incognita, leaving her readers floundering, bored, or frustrated in her wake. Her often brilliant fiction scores higher by setting aside the didacticism.
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1988
ISBN: 0802135293
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1988
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
