Kaufman’s enticing invitation may well persuade readers to finally dive into one of the world’s most acclaimed—and...
At 1,500 pages, with a cast of nearly 600 characters, the book Henry James called a “loose baggy monster” looms as an intimidating project. But Kaufman (Literature/Univ. of Virginia; Understanding Tolstoy, 2011, etc.) thinks reading it is worth the effort: “Times are tough, anxiety and fear are pervasive, and people are searching for answers to questions big and small.”
If this seems an apt description of our own times, it also describes Russia between 1805 and 1812, the setting for Tolstoy’s epic, as well as the 1860s, when he wrote the book, revealing his continual quest for personal and philosophical enlightenment. Kaufman looks to the novel for guidance, “not so much a set of answers to life’s every challenge as an attitude toward living.” To that end, he focuses on a dozen themes: plans, imagination, rupture, success, idealism, happiness, love, family, courage, death, perseverance and truth. In each chapter, Kaufman analyzes how the novel speaks to those themes, offers insights into Tolstoy’s life “of extremes and contradictions,” provides relevant Russian history, and shares personal anecdotes about his own “tumultuous, spiritual journey.” Besides War and Peace, Kaufman refers to some of Tolstoy’s shorter fiction, which he teaches in a course titled Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Leadership. All of Tolstoy’s works, Kaufman contends, deal with big questions: “Who am I? Why am I here? How should I live?” His students, young men incarcerated in a juvenile correctional center, find the readings startlingly relevant—not surprising since Kaufman makes Tolstoy’s characters lively and palpable: free-spirited, tender Natasha; “wide-eyed” Pierre; “coddled young” Nikolai; “the handsome, maleficent rake” Dolohkov. Readers will even find a guide to pronunciation of their names in a helpful appendix.
Kaufman’s enticing invitation may well persuade readers to finally dive into one of the world’s most acclaimed—and daunting—novels.Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4470-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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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