Just in time for Halloween: a pop guide to the hells of the Western world. Turner, longtime fiction editor of Playboy, intends her study to be ``geographical rather than theological or psychological.'' That is, she focuses on the outer aspects of hell—landscape and inhabitants—rather then their raisons d'àtre. In slick, superficial vignettes, she scurries through an enormous number of underworlds, together comprising ``the largest shared construction project in imaginative history.'' Her chronological survey begins in Sumeria, with Inanna's descent to visit her sister Ereshkigal, then moves on to Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Greek, Roman, Gnostic, and Judeo-Christian images of the netherworld. In the Middle Ages, imaginative tours of hell become popular, and purgatory was tacked on as an expiatory antechamber. Dante changed everything by turning hell into allegory, leading to literary fancies by Goethe, Milton, Byron, and Rimbaud, among others. Science, too, dismantled hell- -after early attempts to situate it on the Sun or a comet, materialists relegated it to the imagination. These days, says Turner, ``hell has become something of an embarrassment.'' Her tour is fast and fun, but by eschewing psychology and theology, she trivializes her subject into a set of colorful comic books with almost no hint of the mythological and metaphysical dynamics involved (the few explanations she does offer are reductionist- -e.g., that hells exist to foster earthly political or social power). Disappointing, too, is her failure to explore contemporary belief in hell (shared by 60% of Americans, according to a poll she cites). Sleek but shallow—and doesn't hold a candle to its counterpart, Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang's Heaven: A History (1988). (Illustrations: 32 pages color, 30 b&w)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1993
ISBN: 0-15-140934-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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