Informational rather than inspirational, a journal about journal-writing as a spiritual search, by a teacher of creative writing at Foothill College in Los Altos, Calif. From fall 1987 to summer 1988, Holzer kept two journals: one a record of her writing progress, the other a personal chronicle she hoped to keep separate from the first. In the book, however, they overlap; the personal journal creeps into the creative one, which becomes, for her, a mystical journey. She records dreams, her sense of aloneness, winter sorrows; she stops torturing herself about what exactly she is doing by reminding herself ``a journal can be anything!'' Reviewing the ``vision quest'' of her journal, she notes patterns and turns of character. She finds herself preparing for the inevitable end result of her father's lingering mortal illness and grieving for a dead brother, a doctor who was killed by a snow-grooming machine during the Olympic games in Calgary, Canada—a death prefigured by a dream she recorded in her journal. She visualizes his hands being whole, ``his good hands that had held so many.'' Later she refers to another painful memory: ``Perhaps my uterus wants to cry the story of the child I lost, of what wanted to be formed, and what slipped out into darkness before it could be held securely by the arms near the heart....And maybe I need to discover that this big boulder sitting in my throat consists of a huge mass of words, compacted into stone.'' Sometimes she takes her students for a walk in the woods or fields and, to expose them to nature writing, reads them haiku by Basho. Although this is more a public record of private thoughts than a how-to book, the use of Latinate words and catch phrases like ``creative process'' and ``learning process'' at times gives it an academic tone somewhat at odds with the personal nature of the material. Creativity ought to be more interesting than this.
Pub Date: June 13, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-88096-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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