A richly presented, if didactic, survey of Buddhist thought.
An illustrated treatise on Tibetan religious art that explores visual motifs—animals, flowers, geometric symbols, and much else—that convey precepts of Buddhist philosophy.
Huber and Glantz (The Golden Valley, 2016) spotlight artworks from the Senge Buddhist monasteries in Tibet’s Golden Valley, found on furniture, altar pieces, scripture boxes, prayer wheels, and other objects produced over the last 600 years. They present more than 625 images of these pieces, which feature intricate compositions of flowing lines and vibrant hues of red, blue, pink, green and orange. (Huber notes that he finds the paintings so bizarre and psychedelic that he fleetingly wonders, “could the artists be on drugs, possibly LSD?”) The book is therefore a visual feast, and the authors focus on interpreting this imagery in light of Buddhist precepts. They arrange the text with alphabetic entries on specific visual tropes, which include information on aesthetics, folkloric associations, and mystic, philosophical allusions. Thus, the entry on bael notes the real-world fruit’s aromatic pulp and effectiveness at relieving diarrhea, as well as its reputed ability to boost positive karma to bring one closer to ending samsara, the cycle of suffering and reincarnation; its use in fertility rituals; its canonical artistic representation in groups of three representing “the three jewels of Buddhism”; and its symbolization of “the goal of recognizing emptiness and dependency and the connection between cause and effect.” Throughout, the authors’ investigation of symbols ranges from the mundane to the fanciful. Fish images imply happiness, they note, as well as fertility and the inexhaustible abundance of the Buddha’s energy. The lotus flower speaks of “the soul’s path from the mud of materialism to the purity of enlightenment.” A picture of a skull made into a cup filled with boiling human fat is no mere provocation, but symbolizes “the empowerment of the absolute truth of no self and the realization of the ‘illusory body’.” Their extensive discussions of these subjects effectively make the text a sort of primer on Buddhist doctrine, with substantial sections on the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Noble Path, and the Five Precepts. The authors recount vignettes from the Buddha’s life and parables, such as a tale of a tortoise that refused to leave his pond when it dried up (teaching the folly of attachment to worldly things). They reprint a lengthy Buddhist hymn and sprinkle representative mantras throughout. Overall, though, this book isn’t the most imaginative introduction to Buddhism’s esoteric precepts, due in part to the authors’ dry, catechistic tone, and they’re also rather vague about the “applications” of the lore they present, despite mentioning them in the book’s subtitle. Still, many people will discover uses for this book; novice meditators, for example, will find ideas to ponder and phrases to chant; designers of prayer flags (as well as death-metal band posters) will find resonant imagery; and general readers with an interest in Buddhism and art will find encyclopedic information on a significant tradition with much aesthetic appeal.
A richly presented, if didactic, survey of Buddhist thought.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73146-934-2
Page Count: 107
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable in spite of its intrusively melodramatic prose. Starting out with calculated, movie-ready anecdotes about his boyhood gang, Carcaterra's memoir takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated. Growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s, former New York Daily News reporter Carcaterra (A Safe Place, 1993) had three close friends with whom he played stickball, bedeviled nuns, and ran errands for the neighborhood Mob boss. All this is recalled through a dripping mist of nostalgia; the streetcorner banter is as stilted and coy as a late Bowery Boys film. But a third of the way in, the story suddenly takes off: In 1967 the four friends seriously injured a man when they more or less unintentionally rolled a hot-dog cart down the steps of a subway entrance. The boys, aged 11 to 14, were packed off to an upstate New York reformatory so brutal it makes Sing Sing sound like Sunnybrook Farm. The guards continually raped and beat them, at one point tossing all of them into solitary confinement, where rats gnawed at their wounds and the menu consisted of oatmeal soaked in urine. Two of Carcaterra's friends were dehumanized by their year upstate, eventually becoming prominent gangsters. In 1980, they happened upon the former guard who had been their principal torturer and shot him dead. The book's stunning denouement concerns the successful plot devised by the author and his third friend, now a Manhattan assistant DA, to free the two killers and to exact revenge against the remaining ex-guards who had scarred their lives so irrevocably. Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget. (Film rights to Propaganda; author tour)
Pub Date: July 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-345-39606-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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