by Charles E. Reagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
Though Ricoeur can arguably take some credit for making ``hermeneutics'' a buzzword in graduate seminars, Reagan's passably informative, slightly schizoid book isn't likely to increase awareness of the eminent philosopher. Still writing thick, erudite, and deliberative philosophical works at 83, Ricoeur is enjoying a steadily growing reputation as one of the most influential of living French philosophers. Reagan (Philosophy/Kansas State Univ.), who shares with Jacques Derrida the distinction of having had Ricoeur as a teacher, lets his respect for the philosopher and pacifist water down not only the biographic details here but the intellectual side as well. This patchy work is broken up into four unsatisfying sections—a colorless biographical essay, Reagan's own personal memoir of Ricoeur, an uninspired prÇcis of Ricouer's recent work Oneself as Another, and four interviews. Ricoeur's brand of ``anthropological philosophy'' apart, an intimate, subjective approach would have been justified for a leader of the phenomenological school, even if he insists on the importance of the work over the life. Admittedly, Ricoeur's work tends to be learned, dry, and difficult: an essay on Freud, studies of the symbolism of evil, explorations of the sources of human volition and of time as narrative. But Reagan's glosses are drier still. Ricoeur's life, on the other hand, has crucial moments that Reagan lets pass without much scrutiny: his imprisonment as a soldier in WW II, risky notoriety as a pacifist during the Algerian war, professional battles with fellow philosophers and psychoanalysts in the 1960s, and collisions with student radicals in 1968 while he was serving as a university administrator. A thin book on a dense philosopher, wavering between sycophantic tones and ponderous discourse.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-226-70602-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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