Sharp attention to detail and a deliberate pace give this singular narrative history the sense of a shimmery, vanished past.
A poetic historical exploration of Japan’s immense capital city by an American-born author who moved to Japan to learn the language and was inspired by composer Yoshimura Hiroshi’s book Edo’s Bells of Time.
Living and working in Tokyo for some years as an editor for Hong Kong University Press inspired Sherman, who was born in Arkansas, to create this spiritual memoir, which weaves between personal storytelling of her time there and oral and mythical histories of the old neighborhoods of Tokyo. In the era of the shogunate, before the 16th-century missionaries brought the first clocks, Tokyo was Edo, and time was told by the tolling of bells across the city. The author presents Tokyo as a “timepiece,” with each different neighborhood representing the site of an ancient temple hosting its own singular sacred bell, delineated in Hiroshi’s work. Moving structurally from neighborhood to neighborhood, Sherman whimsically maps the city for readers, chronicling her encounters with the locals, including the owner of a small coffee shop with whom the author built a significant friendship. Sherman also explores the myths of the shogunate and illuminates the personal histories of the monks, bell-ringers, and other interesting characters she met along the way. Throughout her lyrical journey, she follows in the footsteps of Hiroshi, eschewing railroad travel in favor of tracing on foot “areas which bells could be heard, the pattern on a map looked like raindrops striking water.” The author’s own layered process mirrors the city’s complexity, nonlinearity, and frozen beauty. The bells were not always easy to find, but Sherman was determined, and she successfully brings into focus their elusive stories, which point to an appealing past in a city that has moved rapidly into the future.
Sharp attention to detail and a deliberate pace give this singular narrative history the sense of a shimmery, vanished past.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20640-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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