A vibrant, eclectic sojourn into the meaning of it all, hindered by laborious writing and poor organization.
A sprawling theoretical explanation of the human condition.
In her latest work of nonfiction, author Page (Isis Code, 2013) puts forth a massively complex argument for a theoretical model she calls the LIFE biosystem (“LIFE is an acronym for ‘law inherent to the five elements,’ and bio means life”). According to LIFE, there exists a Master Model that guides both the individual life of every person and the evolution of nature itself. For happiness and health to exist, humans must live in harmony with that universal blueprint. Drawing on a staggering array of sources that range from neuroscience to religious history, Page delves into the details of this model and the manifold facets of its expression. Most central are the feminine and masculine polarities, which she defines as “two great forces, mirrors to each other…the feminine polarity is receptive, while the masculine one is expressive.” Healing the ills of the present day, Page argues, will involve rebuilding our society to better support the feminine polarity and the love that stems from it. While Page includes abundant evidence for her claims, that evidence is often couched in such opaque terms that her reasoning is difficult to follow. One typical passage reads: “The bulk of humanity has lost the ability of a global approach because the phase we have embarked upon requires an ultrafocused point of view in a punctual manner.” The citations throughout are extensive, but they also include Wikipedia and other murkily defined sources. What’s more, the book packs an enormous punch of information without providing much narrative structure to support it, bouncing from nutrition advice to personal memoir to Jungian analysis and back again. There’s a polymath vitality here, and Page’s enthusiasm for her work is obvious, but the overall effect is overwhelming. That said, many of Page’s observations ring with an intuitive wisdom that lurks behind the book’s outward chaos. Few would disagree with her impassioned calls for a more balanced, loving world, and interested readers will find plenty of compelling factoids and starting points for further study.
A vibrant, eclectic sojourn into the meaning of it all, hindered by laborious writing and poor organization.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491747292
Page Count: 432
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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