Outside Reading: Book Review #4

Book Review: "Homage to Catalonia"

By Tara McKelvey

Published February 11, 2011

McKelvey’s book review of Jonathon Rabb’s, “The Second Son”, uses Formalism and Archetypal critical perspectives accompanied by the use of diction, detail, and imagery to communicate to the reader the quality of this novel.

After a brief introduction of plot McKelvey uses an Archetypal approach, noticing the combination of the typical “hard-boiled detective novel and love story” (2).  By recognizing this she gives the reader an idea of what to expect since they have most likely read some type of detective novel or love story. The critical perspective used in the writing even more is Formalism. Since “The Second Son” is the third book of a trilogy, the writer notices a motif that throughout the series the main character’s lovers are being killed. This gives the reader some insight on the protagonist and an example of how the two archetypal stories are combined. McKelvey also notices symbols in the novel, adding to the main character’s personality and overall meaning of the piece. Hoffner “feels most keenly the pain of his own family” during the times of war, showing “an intimate illustration of the human cost of state- sanctioned madness” (2). The writer analyzes many formalistic and archetypal aspects of this piece giving the reader a clear idea of its quality and depth.

Other contributing factors that help McKelvey obtain his goal of convincing readers “The Second Son” is a great book, is his use of diction, detail, and imagery. Many details are provided for the reader about plot and characters. Without these the readers would not understand how the book combines “Fascism and anarchy in 1930’s Spain” with a “romantic entanglement” and action (2). Imagery also gives the reader an idea of the feeling in the novel, including the appearance of characters and scenes. The diction, although straying from the overall purpose of the writing by noticing the lack of “concentrated on energy” and “allure” as in the previous books, for the most part presents the fast moving “thriller” with a “seedy appeal” nicely (2). The “sharp scenes and snappy dialogue” add to the positive aspects of the novel (2).

Some connections between this book review and other course material would be the extensive amount of Formalism. It seems like before AP English the main focuses in literature classes were formalistic things like symbols and motifs. McKelvey also discusses Nazism quite a bit because it is a central component of the book and in eighth grade we had a whole World War II and Holocaust unit with books we read about that subject. 

         Using diction, imagery, and detail, with Formalistic and Archetypal critical perspectives, McKelvey achieves his purpose of the review to send a positive critique of the novel to the readers.