Worth a sequel when this deeply introspective author is further down the road.
In this discerning memoir of self-discovery, a veterinarian and farmer from Zambia unveils her inner workings and concludes that faith, hope, love, God and family are what matter most.
Debut author Kingdom hints early on that sex, violence and bad language may crop up as, at age 37, she looks back at her life thus far. This opening caution seems unnecessary. Sexual escapades are few and rendered in circumspect fashion. Violence is mostly confined to certain harsh veterinarian procedures, including the intrauterine dissection and piece-by-piece removal of a dead or undeliverable livestock fetus to save the mother’s life and spare the farmer the cost of a cesarean. Otherwise, violence lurks as a threat, as when the author, who is white, is warned to stay out of the black part of Pretoria while a student there. And rather than bad language, there are high-minded and even quirky chapter-ending philosophical discussions Kingdom imagines having with a younger sister (“Each religion needs to be seen as an internal organ on the body of earth”). The memoir is unconventionally organized by themes (births, deaths, growth, lessons, disease, fears, fires, rhyme, love, death and beliefs) rather than by chronology. Fears range from deeply etched memories of venomous snakes and giant spiders to musings about whether God is really good. A chapter on disease lists the author’s physical and mental ailments. But Kingdom, without saying so herself, emerges not as a sufferer but as a sturdy type perfectly attuned to the rigors of life in the Zambian bush, ensconced in family and essentially happy to be alive beneath the deep blue African sky. Readers should not expect much about contemporary Zambia or her veterinarian practice; these are hardly her main topics. Nor are the lessons she learns always profound. In one typical example, her chapter on disease builds to the realization that “we get sick.” Though raised in a secular family, she more recently conceived a deep faith in God and felt his presence. But she makes clear that she is still a work in progress with far to go on her journey of self-understanding.
Worth a sequel when this deeply introspective author is further down the road.Pub Date: July 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492797647
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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