by Homer Van Meter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2011
An awkward beginning develops into a smooth account of multiple reincarnations as the author traces “the silvery flecks of...
In his first nonfiction effort, Van Meter (Day of the Little Guy, 1996) documents the rise and fall of his past lives.
When readers first meet the modern-day Van Meter, he’s chasing an armed intruder from his home. He doesn’t waste time arguing about the how or why of reincarnation—he just assumes its existence and leaps from that initial chase into another, centuries before, when he hunted and killed a man who’d been his nemesis through many lives. Then it’s back to the first life Van Meter can remember, that of an ancient, warlike Scotsman during the time of the Romans. While Van Meter’s present-day narrative is stilted, with too much time spent discussing how the story will move forward, his recounting of that first life assumes a smooth, graceful lope. There’s just enough debauchery—usually in the name of paganism or war—to border on gratuitous, but there’s also a deep, abiding love that lingers through each of Van Meter’s lives. “My being was never more absorbed by a woman, a place, or a community than it was then,” he writes of the Irishwoman he married. When she and the community they built are both rudely yanked away, it sets up a revolving conflict, along with fellowships, which continues into the present day. At first, Van Meter seems to be telling two distinct stories that don’t quite mesh—that of his contemporary self, with some confusing references to the “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, followed by the wild Scotsman. But as he snaps back to today, the author gathers together the storylines that bind his first and most recent lives into a cohesive plot, tracing parts of himself that he’s carried for centuries.
An awkward beginning develops into a smooth account of multiple reincarnations as the author traces “the silvery flecks of memories of people who used to be.”Pub Date: April 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1450296090
Page Count: 168
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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by Kerry Egan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2016
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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