I read about halfway through this book, and then I gave up. I read James' "Turn of the Screw," and "Daisy Miller" in high school, and I remember liking the former and thinking the latter was just okay. (I know, I know, it's a major classic by one of America's most celebrated writers, but just because something has merit doesn't mean I like it better.) One of my all time favorite books was James' "Washington Square." It's hard for me to believe that the same man wrote "Square" and "Maisie." This book is only for MAJOR Henry James enthusiasts.

I don't regret having read this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't already into Henry James. The style is hard to understand, apparently because it was dictated, and the subject matter is even more obscure. I don't think Henry James had much experience with children: even assuming that Maisie is twisted by her strange situation, she doesn't talk like any child I know or can imagine. Weird moral undercurrents and jealousy take up most, if not all, of the novel. I wouldn't take claims of this book's modernity too seriously - it's more on the byzantine side. Read The Europeans instead: so much more fun!

I think this is the most modern of Henry James' stories. Young Maisie's parents divorce and then seem to spend their lives using her to get a teach other, until they develop other interests. Sadly, the story resonates today - immature, self-centered parents and the children that they create. Henry James' insight into the life of such a child is brilliant.

The logbook style of D'Aboville's book doesn't lend itself well to a deep understanding of what goes through the mind of a solo rower travelling across the ocean. The reader gets glimpses, but not a coherent narrative. The terse entries make for a fast read and the subject matter is interesting.

The opening of this novel does indeed show girls at play at a boarding school in East Africa, but it soon becomes clear that the title refers to the four teachers at the school -- the only white women in this remote region with nothing much to do after school hours. There's Miss Poole, the headmistress, a colonial born in Africa who does not care for England and continues to stay on even as independence for this African nation means lowered standards for whites like themselves. There's Bettyjean (B.J.) Lebow, a peace corps worker from San Diego, who struggles hard to match her fantasies of Africa with the realities. There's her room-mate, Pam Male. And finally Heather Monkhouse, who has had some sort of trouble in Nairobi and taken up teaching at this remote school. When finally two black men go out on a date with two of the teachers, a trail of tragedy engulfts each of the teachers' lives. The writing is uneven in patches (this was one of the author's early novels), but there are flashes of black humor. The funniest parts include scenes of the teachers taking turns in hosting group dinners at each of their homes although they cannot stand one another, each trying to outdo the other in being a rude and poor hostess.

Caution: Starlet contains much female nudity of the torso and derriere. The images are intended to be provocative, without being in poor taste. The book also contains occasional coarse words. If such things offend you, avoid this book.

If Starlet had a larger page size and a lower price, this would be a five-star book. It contains the writing and photography to warrant a five-star rating.

Starlet's theme is how an aspiring young actress or actor goes about defining herself or himself to attract the attention of Hollywood producers, directors, and casting executives while then going on to grab a mass audience in the theaters.

In the days of the studio system, the studio hired hundreds of such youngsters and tried to build them into stars around a preconceived marketing concept. Today, the youngsters have to do the same thing, but by relying on their own resources. It makes the odds much more difficult to overcome.

Ms. Nancy Ellison's photography from 1970-1995 shows a remarkable ability to capture the uniqueness of her strivers, rather than putting them all into simple molds. Her results seemed best at capturing the subtleties of personality, body type, and acting ability of the subjects when women were involved. But a few of her male photographs are quite remarkable, too.

Ms. Ellison's opening essay on her philosophy is very well done, and explains her work quite well. "To the viewer, the starlet holds this problem, availability, surrender, and finally, possession." "With another woman, I choose to be in collusion with her -- to seduce the world with her beauty." "What has she got that no one else has?" "It is the imagery that creates the desirability of the subject." "Starlet is an homage to all those beautiful creatures who posed for my camera hoping for stardom, and to their youthful dreams."

As fine as her essay is, it is easily outshone by Mr. Paul Theroux's musings about what a starlet is. He begins by recalling his experience as a youngster spotting Marilyn Monroe in Scubba-Hoo! Scubba-Hay! listed in the credits as "girl in rowboat" (which was actually a canoe). From there he describes the Margot Peters character in Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark. Mr. Theroux puts up many contradictory, but partially accurate, dictionary definitions. These ideas are contrasted with popular conceptions and how directors think about starlets. Ultimately, he feels that a starlet is many things including "the siren, the waif, the girl with screen potential, the babe, the expressive face, the eloquent [derriere] . . . ."

You will recognize and be interested in many of the photographs in the book. Most of the subjects went on to have noteworthy careers, but there are also unknowns who are probably out of the industry now.

My favorite female images were of Rosanna Arquette, Shari Belafonte, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Molly Ringwald, Jennifer Tilly, Grace Jones, Isabelle Adjani, Kim Bassinger, Catherine Hicks, Isabelle Huppart, Isabella Rosellini, Margot Kidder, Maud Adams, Heather Locklear, Sharon Stone, Glenn Close, and Arielle Dombasle. In terms of acting skill for the camera, Rosanna Arquette, Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppart, Sharon Stone, and Glenn Close will make the biggest impressions on you. These women were all quite young in these photographs (although clearly over 18) so there's a dewiness that you may not have seen before. On the other hand, strong character is also clearly present in some of these women at quite a young age. In others, emotional maturity is evident also.

My favorite male photographs were of Pierce Brosnan (the best in my opinion), Christopher Reeve, River Phoenix, and Nicholas Cage.

The page size for these images should have had an area about 40 percent larger. The details would have reproduced much better if that had been the case.

In many cases, a two page layout has five or six images on it. These images are really too small to do justice to the work.

I would like to mention that the captions were excellent. Ms. Ellison discusses the subject, the issues involved with the shooting, and makes broader observations about starlets in these captions.

For the number of pages in this volume, I thought the price was excessive. The volume felt more like one that should have had a suggested retail price of $27.50 to me.

Despite my quibbles, most people who love to look at beautiful women and handsome men will find this to be an outstanding volume.

I suggest that you take out photographs of yourself at various ages, and look objectively to see what these images tell you about how you represent yourself. In which ones are you playing a role? In which ones are you being yourself? What lessons do you draw from these observations and from seeing Starlet about how you should portray yourself in the future?

Let the beauty of your soul shine through!

Paul Theroux is a very talented writer. He writes excellent stories, he's written some good novels, and he used to write good travel books too. I've enjoyed plenty of them over the years. Who am I ? I am just a reader out there in small town Massachusetts who's had a few experiences in life and who likes to read books about faraway places, or maybe about the human comedy. I'm not a hot-shot critic. I can't expound on the literary qualities of this or that writer with the expertise gleaned from English departments, because I didn't attend any courses in those English departments. But life is in the eye of the beholder. As Mr. Theroux has grown older, his view of life has become more and more pessimistic. Nothing gives him pleasure, everything leads to disappointment, failure, and frustration. He sees many people trying to make up for the nature of his world through lies, delusions, and retreat. He has become a man who sees only the garbage on the beach of life. All relationships must end badly in this world---they are disappointing right from the start usually. The maggot of indecision and betrayal always appears, it can be squeezed and ejected from under the skin as in the story "White Lies", but never avoided. Your closest friends and heroes will fall short of your expectations, your loves will fade, and nothing can replace them. Life---in these stories---is indeed a rotten, desperate situation. But at least, Theroux can write about it, tear it apart, and send it out in sad, unpleasant little pieces. Even if it's your old friend and mentor, you can turn on him and publish a whole book telling us what a rat he always was. Maybe he was. If I ever met Mr. Theroux, I'd make like "Roadrunner" and disappear in a flash, rather than risk winding up a crabbed, contemptible suburbanite in some story.

OK, these are my remarks. If you've read this far, then I can tell you that taking into account these feelings of mine, there are some excellent stories in this collection, though some are not up to his usual high standard. "The Odd-Job Man", about an American academic in England, "The Greenest Island", a long story about an inexperienced American youth in Puerto Rico, and "Clapham Junction", a short but powerful story about the depths of human foibles stand out. Personally, I think you'd do better with "The Consul's File" or with some of the earlier novels. If you already know Theroux and like his style, you'll probably find this collection excellent. I find his view of the world too jaundiced, too cynical, too negative. The brightest day, the happiest moment, the most beautiful scene always carries a vague menace and the seed of major failure. I agree that it is possible, but always ???

Kowloon Tong By Paul Theroux Published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd. $29.95 Despite the fact that this book was pushed by Whitcoulls as the book to buy for Father's Day along with the Jonah Lomu autobiography, I'll try to reflect that I did actually quite enjoy this novel. Theroux's central character is Englishman Neville Bunt, part-heir of a successful stitching factory in Hong Kong in the final two years before the island reverts back to Chinese rule. As characters go, Bunt is a particularly dislikable one. Although he has lived in the colony his entire life, he has remained uninterested in making any attempt to get to grips with the local culture in that despicable way that only wealthy ex-pats seem to be capable of. His half-dozen or so words of Cantonese all revolve around prostitution; he lives with his mother, and has the social skills of a mute graduate of the Timaru School of Tedious Conversation. After the death of his Chinese business partner, Mr. Cheung, Bunt's tediously predictable life begins to go astray. Enter Mt Hung, representative of the Chinese army and tactless yet efficient business negotiator. Hung makes his case to Bunt quite clear: if he does not sell his business immediately then it shall be acquired through other less friendly means following the handover. Seeing he has few options, and to alleviate his mother's desire for the offered 'million quid', Bunt begins to go along with Hung's offer. Despite this, other things begin to go astray; Hung at first invades Bunt's private life. Then things turn nastier... On the other side of things, the book did have its bad points. All the characters are extremely stereotypically. Bunt is boring, predictable and is nothing outside of the worst ex-pat; his mother is a domineering archetype who flutters away on the horses and ignores the handover completely. Mr. Hung meanwhile, is a one-dimensional character. Theroux portrays him as a ruthless toll of the PLA, determined to eliminate anyone or thing that stands in the way of 'the great Chinese Takeaway'. Although these points are a downfall, they also somehow add to the book - it does point out that Hong Kong has been about one thing and one thing only: money. The Chinese are simply replacing the British, who always looked down at the people of Hong Kong who were the workers who made the island the economic power it is today. Kowloon Tong is a reasonable read, some of you may enjoy, and others may not. Theroux has often been labeled a racist and, although it is not obvious in this novel, he has defiantly not gone out to remove the suspicion. Some reviews I have read loathed this book and many of their criticisms are well based. Hmm..what can I say but check it out.

I very much enjoyed "Kowloon Tong" but then I am a big fan of Paul Theroux's writing. This one of his better novels I think.

The characters in this novel are typical of Theroux, they are strong and evoke a strong reaction. The novel has been criticized for how it depicts the Chinese. Having visited Hong Kong a number of times and studied Mandarin in Bei Jing I found one side of the Chinese character well described and represented. I would say though that another side of the Chinese personality is perhaps not so well represented. Many of the Chinese people whom I know are also very warm and delightful people.

The British I don't now so well but they do seem to lend themselves to being made fun of. If you enjoyed this part of "Kowloon Tong" try Theroux's "Emerald Kingdom"!

The story in "Kowloon Tong" is exciting and difficult to put down. This is a novel well worth reading.

I first read Kowloon Tong while living in Stanley, Hong Kong, just a few months before the Hand-over. I have found its rendering of attitudes of expatriates and chinese by far the most accurate account of the Hong Kong I experienced on a day to day basis. Theroux is equally fair (and equally blunt) about British, Chinese and American residents in Hong Kong - I encountered the boorish behaviour described here everyday - that was Hong Kong, a place where people went to make money, or to escape from China (or both). Not everyone, of course, was like Bunt and Hung, but these are recognizable types.
The plot is that of Graham Greene thriller, with the sarcasm of Evelyn Waugh and Gore Vidal thrown in. I should add that I find many of the comments on this page highly evocative of the Hong Kong I knew, too - the novel was banned in China and was a painful read for some Hong Kong British, Chines and Americans I knew (especially the types well-described here -chiefly long-term residents). The detached reader should enjoy a good read that's also highly accurate in its description.
The Hong Kong I knew was about the most un-literary place on the planet. "Criticism" of Hong Kong was thought of as a pamphlet from the Tourist Bureau, an announcement from the Government Publicity Office, or the Website of a company wanting to do business in China. But that is not what novelists do.

Paul Theroux is not a bad writer, but his novel "Chicago Loop" is one of the worst novels I've ever read. I didn't like a single character in this book, and the main character is no more than a twisted sexual deviant. I would give this book zero stars if that were allowed. I would not recommend this novel to anyone unless you enjoy reading about the psychological breakdown of a very unlikeable person.

I have been transported by Theroux's fiction, especially his Collected Stories and My Other Life. But this book has problems. As an exploration of the anguish of a man trying to face the innate aggression of male sexuality, it sometimes succeeds. But the main character does not cohere, and his psychosis is no excuse for the author's failure. It reads as though the character had been rewritten at least twice, but was never integrated.
There are also problems with the setting. It might seem petty and provincial to quibble about details of local color, but Theroux is after all a famous travel writer. The neighborhoods and buildings depicted exist, but the businesses and people he describes would never occupy them. A Polish-American woman says she is from "Milwaukee Avenue," which would be like a New Yorker saying he came from "Third Avenue." Most unforgiveably, she puts ketchup on her sausage. This horrifying lapse makes me wonder whether he visited Chicago at all, or just referred at a map.

The few negative reviews posted here can, in my opinion, be discounted. If you're looking for likeable characters or a taut crime sage, er... you picked up the book. This is as chilling an account of a psychotic's interior life as one is likely to read (it buries Ellis' similarly-themed, far less insightful "American Psycho). The protagonist, Parker, isn't simply unlikeable, he is - for a time - eerily unknowable, and the book's greatest acheivement is how it mirrors this notion in the cunning narrative tricks Theroux employs. Once Parker's soul is indeed laid bare to him and us, the descent is a harrowing one, but worth the journey.

This is the first book that I have read by Paul Theroux. I am generally a Stephen King reader but unfortunally my English teacher does not allow him for a book report. Anyways, I had an oral presentation to do today on The Black House, and since this book didn't catch my intrest, I only read to page 25. Come on! I was falling asleep. I still give all regards to the author but I just couldn't stand the boring lit.

I could only bear the first 110 pages. I can't stand reading anymore. Argh! I gave it this much time of my life because he is a renowned author and deserved some respect, but, one can only take so much boredom. Sorry to all the Theroux lovers.

English anthropologist Alfred Munday has returned to his homeland for health reasons after a decade in Uganda studying the Bwamba tribe. Frustrated by this forced change in his life, Munday finds himself unable to begin preparing his research for publication. His marriage sits on precarious ground, and he and his wife have just taken on a domestic disaster: the home they leased site-unseen--Bowood House, "the Black House" to locals--is ruinous, inhospitable, and apparently haunted. Munday's superior, intellectual airs quickly alienate the couple from their neighbors in the town of Four Ashes. Then the beautiful Caroline appears, and she initiates a torrid, reckless affair with Munday, whose old troubles are quickly exchanged for new ones.

There is a prevailing tone of despair, even damnation, to Paul Theroux's ghost story, THE BLACK HOUSE. Munday is a pathetic creature, a surly egoist unable to make or keep friends or to fill his roles as husband and scholar. He allows the trappings of his identity slowly to be stripped away until he is only a shadow of his formerly serious and professional self. He invites an African acquaintance to Four Ashes for a visit, but Munday, under the influence of this growing malaise, becomes suddenly embarrassed by the very sight of the man and abuses him at every turn. Though clearly he needs no help at it, some of his new neighbors are more than willing to aid Munday's decline: while giving a presentation at a local church about his anthropological work in Africa, a valuable and dangerous Bwamba artifact is stolen from him; the theft drives Munday to distraction, sensing that if he should ever see the object again it will not be under happy circumstances. The great irony which unfolds over the course of the novel is that this anthropologist, who considers it his vocation to make one African tribe comprehensible to the outside world, cannot himself adapt to the simple community of Four Ashes. In placing himself above small town life, Munday rejects the basic principals of social integration, thus making himself ideal prey for the mysterious Caroline.

The quality of Theroux's writing and the dark mix of psychology, intense sensuality, and metaphysical unease place THE BLACK HOUSE in the estimable company of Richard Adams' THE GIRL IN A SWING and Robert Aickman's "strange stories." This is a territory in which unexpected and inexplicable episodes drive the narrative: Munday glimpses two mutilated dogs under a tarp in a local man's garden; a woman applying for a maid's position at Bowood House leaves information leading the Mundays to the wrong address; the scorching eroticism of Caroline's surprise visits threaten to leave the Mundays' home in flames. Such incidents accumulate over the course of the novel, tempered by Theroux's cool but entrancing prose. From this grows a palpable tension that--perhaps in keeping with its nature--never actually resolves. One almost anticipates the novel's vague, indecipherable ending, a point at which Theroux compels his readers to share, for a moment, Munday's banishment to a maddening limbo.