A valuable and compact approach for removing the most corrosive tendencies of self-criticism.
A debut guide explores ways to control and silence self-doubts.
“The Critic operates inside of you,” writes Ross in his book. “It is your enemy.” In a brief narrative characterized by this type of blunt language, the author describes the three central components of the kind of deeply internalized self-criticism that’s the subject of his manual. This self-criticism (“the Critic”) is first of all autonomous—it’s not a product of conscious choice. Second, this censure is also, paradoxically, external, created from negative input received as a child (“Even though the criticism comes from within, it is foreign in nature”). And third, this appraisal is completely negative and malicious. Ross breaks down every aspect of the Critic and its tactics, always in sharp, succinct language designed to be remembered. Readers are told, for instance, that the Critic’s attacks are always lies, since they rely on the presumption that the entire person, rather than some aspect, is deficient (“No one on the planet can be defective, or a loser or worthless…as a person”). The discussion ranges from the toll the Critic exacts on individuals to the cumulative waste and misery it causes the whole world in collateral damage, such as “marital and family strife, domestic violence, divorce, childhood abuse, rape, teen suicide, depression, crime, terrorism, persecution—and so much more.” By skillfully anatomizing both the tactics and the component parts of the inner conflicts that give rise to the Critic, Ross constructs a series of straightforward approaches to fixing the problem. “Since anger is always toxic,” he writes at one point, “the goal is to eliminate it 100%.” This kind of frank, no-nonsense advice will be invaluable to many readers accustomed to the fuzzy generalities of most self-help books. Although the author pays far too little attention to the well-known positive effects an inner critic can have (tact, for instance, would be impossible otherwise), his guide delivers a bolt of refreshingly direct advice on how to ease up on yourself.
A valuable and compact approach for removing the most corrosive tendencies of self-criticism.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-578-08492-3
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Out Reach Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.
Largely autobiographical meditations and wanderings through landscapes external and internal.
National Book Critics Circle Award–winner Solnit (River of Shadows: Edward Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, 2003, etc.) roams through a large territory here. The book cries out for an explanatory subtitle: “field guide” shouldn’t be taken as a literal description of these eclectic memories, keen observations and provocative musings. Four of Solnit’s essays have the same title, “The Blue of Distance,” but the first segues from the blue in Renaissance paintings to a turquoise blouse the author wore as a child, then to the blue of distance seen on a walk across the drought-shrunken Great Salt Lake. The second presents Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer who wandered for years in the Americas, and then several white children taken captive by Indians; their stories demonstrate that a person can cease to be lost not only by returning, but also by turning into someone else. The third blue essay explores the world of country and western music, full of tales of loss and longing. The fourth introduces the eccentric artist Yves Klein, who patented the formula for his special electric blue paint and claimed to be launching a new Blue Age. How does it all fit in? Don’t ask, just enjoy, for Solnit is a captivating writer. Woven in and out of these four pieces and the five others that alternate with them are Solnit’s immigrant ancestors, lost friends, former lovers, favorite old movies, her own dreams, the house she grew up in, harsh deserts, animals on the edge of extinction and abandoned buildings. All become material for the author’s explorations of loss, losing and being lost.
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.Pub Date: July 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03421-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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