Whether his subjects are viewed as champions or apostates, Oppenheimer's insightful narrative should inspire some...
"A political identity is always a negotiation, between what it demands and who we are," asserts freelance journalist Oppenheimer as he explores "the negotiation of specific left-wing identities…and how those negotiations fell apart."
In this confident debut, the author examines the processes by which six prominent figures—Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens—came to alter their political views to move from being devotees of the left (arguably excepting Reagan) to advocates for conservatism (arguably excepting Hitchens). Oppenheimer’s purpose is not to suggest some unifying principle behind his subjects' metamorphoses or to evaluate the views of either the right or the left but rather to explore the nature and origins of personal political belief. He tells these individuals' stories because "it's during the period of political transition…that the contingency and complexity of belief become most visible." The author contends that we can learn something of value "about the world and ourselves by observing that process with empathy and respect," in particular a degree of humility about our own apparently deeply held political principles. On one level, the book is a narrative of six ideological odysseys, driven by shifting leftist orthodoxies unique to their times and by personal, emotional issues unique to the individual. The events span the period from the Stalinist 1930s through the New Left to the post–9/11 left of today—"a history of the American Left in the Twentieth Century"—and Oppenheimer ably reveals each era's characteristics, contradictions, and challenges to intelligent adherents. The author excels in portraying the personal torments and costs to his subjects in their transitional struggles, including losses of self-confidence, friendships, and professional relations. The interplay between large historical movements and personal anguish is well-balanced and skillfully handled throughout.
Whether his subjects are viewed as champions or apostates, Oppenheimer's insightful narrative should inspire some soul-searching among political believers of every stripe.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4165-8970-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
PROFILES
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
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
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