Journalist and former mountain guide Veenhof offers a clearer understanding of the singular man who penetrated the mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism and disseminated the practices to the West.
As the author recounts in this dogged, workmanlike biography, Theos Bernard (1908–1947) learned much of his early study of Tantric Yoga from his father and uncle, Glen and Pierre Bernard, respectively, who had in turn apprenticed under their Lincoln, Neb., neighbor, Sylvais Hamati, an East Indian Vedic guru. While Pierre went on to great fame and riches in the 1920s and ’30s with his Nyack, N.Y., yoga center for the stars—a wild trajectory recently chronicled in Robert Love’s excellent The Great Oom (2010)—Glen traveled to India to study Tantric philosophy, leaving his former wife and son to their own devices in Arizona. A near-death from scarlet fever as an adolescent goaded Theo into mastering yoga practices for health and strength, and after law school he finally met his father and found in him his guru—though Theo never acknowledged him as such. Eventually, Bernard made his way to his uncle’s place Nyack. He began studies in philosophy and anthropology at Columbia University, under Franz Boas, whose “participant observation methodology” Bernard hoped to adapt among the Buddhists in Tibet. Very few Westerners had penetrated Lhasa and its monasteries, and Veenhof, a Buddhist, dwells at great length on Bernard’s extensive 1937 trip, the marvels of which he later publicized in magazine articles, lectures and books such as Penthouse of the Gods (1939). Two visionary institutions organized by him were just getting off the ground in California when he disappeared on a Himalayan trip in 1947. Veenhof does a yeoman’s job of bringing this exalted life back into focus. A useful study, especially considering the enormous growth in interest in Tibetan Buddhism.
Pub Date: May 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-51432-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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