Engaging and often meaningful but lacking polish and balance.
A novel about the travails of the 20th-century Catholic Church, as told through stories of California priests.
Quinn explores the lives of a group of men from the days of their youth, through seminary, and on into their respective careers as clergymen. With an epic feel reminiscent of (and strangely contrasted to) Willa Cather’s 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop, the author leads readers through decades of change and upheaval for Roman Catholicism, the United States, and the world. As his characters go about their seminary studies during World War II, they already exhibit signs of living apart from a very busy, troubled world, and their lives are marked by attempts to catch up to cycles of change brought about by everything from the Second Vatican Council to the sexual revolution. Some scenes of international intrigue globalize and complicate an already broad storyline, but most of the drama in this work takes place in the local and vocational lives of the priests themselves. Sexual tension is a major theme, culminating in a false charge of rape against one priest, Tyler Stone, by his 17-year-old female student. Another priest, David Carmichael, who goes on to become a bishop, personifies the difficulties that many Catholics have with accepting church teachings without question, especially on issues such as abortion and homosexuality. In another case, wealthy family connections and an adherence to orthodoxy help launch Gordon Caprice, a talented young priest, toward a career in Rome, while his sister, Willow, engages in Cold War intrigue as a foreign-service agent. Much of Quinn’s work is engaging and imaginative, and he certainly gives his readers plenty to think about. At times, though, the work is bogged down in lengthy, didactic dialogue which will slowly lose readers’ interest. An interminable courtroom scene, in which the psychosexuality of priests is discussed at great length, is one such example. Quinn’s novel, which begins in Catholic neighborhoods of the 1930s and ends with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, covers a lot of ground. However, it doesn’t allow readers enough chances to catch their breath along the way.
Engaging and often meaningful but lacking polish and balance.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5035-2327-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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