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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
