Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 29, 1990 TAG: 9008010059
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Bob Hope with Melville Shavelson. Putnam. $19.95.
To criticize Bob Hope may be near to defacing the flag. He has become a symbol of sorts of American culture during the past 60 years and is, thus, at least a minor national treasure. However, "Don't Shoot, It's Only Me" is not the flag and, if it were a national treasure, we would surely be literarily bankrupt.
Hope and Melville Shavelson, a Hollywood writer who numbers "How to Make a Jewish Movie" among his credits, have stitched together a series of reminiscences largely from Hope's tours of military bases through three wars. Their technique consists of alternating a few sentences of serious thought about the military or political situation with a joke. Another time and place, another joke. And so it goes from early World War II through Korea to Vietnam.
The whole effect fell flat for this reader. Hope fans may feel different but the phrase "pretentious patriotism" sums up the book. In Draft Board terms, Hope's personal efforts rate 1-A; the book 4-F. - SIDNEY BARRITT
Bred To Win
By William Kinsolving. Doubleday. $19.95.
The intricate plot of William Kinsolving's long (612 pages) novel moves as surely and swiftly as one of the thoroughbreds in the many races depicted between the covers. A neat irony exists in the title. The central character, Annie Grebauer, is at the novel's beginning certainly not "bred to win." She's the daughter of an alcoholic, abusive father, the sister of two endlessly cruel brothers and the victim of backwoods Kentucky poverty.
But fate (and novelists) apparently never tire of the rags-to-riches approach, and Annie rises assuredly to the world of inherited money and thoroughbred raising and racing.
As the plot progresses, Annie finds romance, danger, great happiness and equally great sadness in her life. She also finds that thoroughbreds, like people, aren't always assured of success through breeding alone. While the human characters are memorable, the equine characters are equally so. The myriad details of the world of thoroughbreds and racing are clearly and convincingly portrayed. Horse-racing fans will doubtless find "Bred to Win" a winner. - HARRIET LITTLE
The Kneeling Bus
By Beverly Coyle. Ticknor & Fields. $18.95.
Another traditional story of growing up, "The Kneeling Bus" begins in Florida during the 1950s and ends 30 years later in New York.
Carrie, the daughter of a Methodist minister, is as much an observer as a participant in the strange rituals taking place around her. The death of a child, a baptism by immersion, an encounter with an epileptic and her mother's menopausal pregnancy all come to life in the competent hands of author Beverly Coyle. Yet all remain static, like tableaux we regard in passing, without taking part in them.
By the end of the novel, Carrie has abandoned her romantic plan to save the heathen of far-off places and has settled for teaching English half-heartedly in a small college. After trying to cajole her mother into selling some valuable inherited property, she acknowledges her mother's worth and may even be ready to recognize her own.
Episodic, somehow incomplete, "The Kneeling Bus" left me feeling unsatisfied. It's as though the author has a secret she wants to share but cannot quite bring herself to reveal it. - LYNN ECKMAN
by CNB