The Eyre Affair

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on July 1, 2002

Some of the problem is plotting . . . and then there are the puns.

Halls of Fame

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on May 1, 2002

If all of Halls of Fame were as carefully constructed as these two pieces, I’d use the term `wondrous’ to
describe the entire book.

One Man’s Meat

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on April 1, 2002

I got a letter from a lightning rod company this morning trying to put the fear of God in me, but with small success. Lightning seems to have lost its menace. Compared to what is going on on earth today, heaven’s firebrands are penny fireworks with wet fuses. (“Removal,” July 1938) A bit of history: [...]

Sheba

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on December 1, 2001

Before I get to Sheba, the actual subject of this review, I’d like to take a moment to explore a parallel that occurred to me about halfway through the book. It’s a parallel that Nicholas Clapp never addresses directly, but which he must be aware of, because it is what makes his book cohere. There [...]

Loving Pedro Infante

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on November 1, 2001

Loving Pedro Infante tells the story of Teresina Ávila, or Tere, a divorced thirtysomething teachers’ aide in Cabritoville, New Mexico. Tere has a mother who’s always there for her, a best friend she can tell anything to, a string of romantic failures, and mixed feelings about her job, but what really defines her life is [...]

The Other Side of Eden

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on October 1, 2001

The Other Side of Eden is a puzzle of a book, by turns engrossing and dull, insightful and preachy. In it, Hugh Brody examines hunter-gatherer cultures, individually and in general, and looks at how these societies coexist — and, more often, clash — with the rest of the world, which can be generally summed up [...]

The PowerBook

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on September 1, 2001

Yesterday, as I was considering how to begin my review of The PowerBook, a friend spotted the book on my coffee table. “Jeanette Winterson!” she exclaimed. “She’s a great writer.” I agreed, and we got to talking, and we found that we had both been disappointed by Winterson’s recent work. My friend then picked up [...]

Provinces of Night

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on July 1, 2001

A man nearing the end of a murderous quest — to hunt down and kill his wife’s lover — pauses on the brink of action. He can carry out the plan he’s made, he realizes, but what will he do then? He is “at the point on an ancient map beyond which the old cartographers [...]

The Guest From the Future

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on April 1, 2001

The Guest from the Future is a difficult book to classify. It comprises a goodly amount of literary criticism, and the bulk of the work focuses on the life of Anna Akhmatova, yet the author informs us in the preface that “[t]his book is not a biography of Anna Akhmatova, nor is it a work [...]

Love, etc.

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on March 1, 2001

I…deal in subjective truth–so much more real, and more reliable, than the other sort… Julian Barnes is, on the evidence of his novels, a man obsessed. For while his books assume different forms and deal with a range of subjects, they are all, at heart, about the search for truth. How has the story come [...]