David Mehegan
Mario Vargas Llosa’s final novel is a sweet, light story about art and idealism—and its ever-present opposite, cynicism.
This tragic, absorbing, and moving quasi-novel is best characterized as a “tour de force”.
This is the story of powerless little people caught up in a confusing maelstrom, at the receiving end of senseless violence.
This is a well-crafted story about the gulf between well-off Americans who can safely ignore power politics in their daily lives (and how many of us are doing just that!) and those at the edge of being oppressed or crushed by them.
Hearing the novel’s poignant voices, we can’t help but think that in many respects the plight of poor young men in the ’hood is everywhere alike.
“Room on the Sea” is impressively crafted and written, but its lack of bite, drive, and action left me restless.
Richard Kreitner’s narrative shows that, in general, Jews were apparently no more intolerant of slavery than any other Americans – notwithstanding their spiritual and national history of liberation from bondage.
“Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens” is a power-packed guide to the way poems are made and understood, a useful addition to the bookshelf of anyone who reads the art for pleasure.
An absorbing novel that builds steadily, not to a shattering or violent conclusion (all the violence is in the past or offstage) but to a quiet release that is humane and persuasive.
Notwithstanding the book’s research foundation, albeit colorfully amplified with personal and historical anecdotes, as a civilizational story Inheritance is a lightweight effort.
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