A plain but honest memoir and an inspiring story of how one person can make a profound difference.
A memoir about the author’s efforts to help a struggling hospital in Africa.
Gorman’s debut recounts her journey to the struggling African country of Chad to help a maternity ward, as well as the events leading up to and following her trip. The author was living a comfortable life in Wales as a neonatal nurse when she was moved to action after watching a BBC program that showed how young mothers in Chad frequently died for want of simple medicines such as magnesium sulfate and antibiotics. Her initial plan to get her union to contribute some money for medicine quickly turned into a larger, grass-roots effort, which eventually led Gorman to travel to Chad with three other volunteers and a BBC film crew. The author effectively describes her impressions of the struggling African nation (“Occasionally we would see some areas with greenery and pools of stagnant water near the roadside”). She also recounts what they saw in the hospital maternity ward—including hopeful stories that show how the medicine they brought saved lives and grimmer stories about patients they were unable to help. The book includes traveloguelike stories about meals and places they visited, as well as a description of the local hospital’s medical practices and the author’s basic training for midwives. Gorman also provides many details about the journey and its daily events, and some may seem extraneous to the overall story; there are also times when the book becomes repetitive, although on at least one occasion, the author notes this (“If these words sound familiar, it is because I know that I have already described them in an earlier chapter”). In many ways, Gorman’s down-to-earth nature makes the book feel like a long letter from a close friend. She shows an appealing willingness to share humorous personal details, such as her fear of African insects and an incident in which she accidentally left a package of her underwear among supplies being donated to the hospital.
A plain but honest memoir and an inspiring story of how one person can make a profound difference.Pub Date: April 24, 2007
ISBN: 978-1425992002
Page Count: 272
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 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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