A generous and instructive book on working through relationships, with much to recommend for readers, whether they are fans...
A Buddhist approach to navigating key relationships with lessons from the cult classic film.
In this accessible and often inspiring new book, Buddhist studies teacher and author Nichtern (The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path, 2015, etc.) applies a contemporary understanding of Buddhist practices to the core foundations of friendships, romantic attractions, and family bonds, relaying how and why meaningful companionship can be essential when undertaking a path toward spiritual self-discovery. The author draws expansively from his own experiences with relationships and as a teacher of meditation and Buddhism, but he also attaches relevance to the evolving relationships explored in The Princess Bride. “The ‘dharma’ contained in The Princess Bride is all about relationships,” writes Nichtern. “The story offers a perfect canvas upon which to explore the three things that almost always take over the discussion when I teach Buddhism: the dharma of friendship, the dharma of romance, and the dharma of family.” In the first section, “The Dharma of Friendship,” he uses the film’s narrative arc and character development to convincingly illustrate how and why friendships form. In later sections, which deal with romantic attractions and family bonds, the author effectively engages readers with his ability to streamline complex Buddhist concepts and accessibly share authentic personal experiences. The author clearly has a deep affection for The Princess Bride and its characters, which provides a convenient platform for many of the concepts. Yet even for readers who may be unfamiliar with the film or are not die-hard fans compelled to rewatch multiple times, the strength of Nichtern’s Buddhist insights and overall content extend well beyond the film’s connection.
A generous and instructive book on working through relationships, with much to recommend for readers, whether they are fans of The Princess Bride or not.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-86547-776-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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