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HEALING POWERS

Name: HEALING POWERS
Author: Fred M. Frohock
ISBN: 0-226-26584-6

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES, AND THE STATE

by Fred M. Frohock ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 1992

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A sophisticated and sympathetic look at nonconventional healing methods and their place in a pluralistic democracy. Frohock (Political Science/Syracuse Univ.; Special Care, 1986) poses two tough questions: What do we make of claims that alternative realities exist and that contact with them can lead to miraculous cures? And should alternative healing be free from state regulation in a liberal democracy? Neither gets a clear answer, but there's much pleasure along the way as Frohock explores the social and spiritual issues involved. His approach is eccentric: ``narratives'' constructed from interviews with patients and healers (names are changed), interspersed with historico-political analysis and with—this must be a first in a scholarly book—the ``wholly imaginative,'' coldly lucid voice of Luke, a child battling cancer (he's been invented, we are told, ``to provide access to interior or subjective levels of experience that linear texts cannot''). The healers whose stories we hear include Pentecostal ministers, Catholic priests, Christian Scientists, homeopaths, an Orthodox Jew who straddles Western and alternative medicines; the patients include drug-addicted doctors, dying children, car-crash victims. More often than not, the cure seems nothing less than a full-fledged miracle. Frohock balances these narratives with clearheaded discussions of some age-old puzzlers: What is health (inner balance, spiritual integrity, freedom from disease)? What is mental competence? How should church and state interact? Usually, Frohock presents the options and lets the reader decide; scholarly distancing, however, cannot hide his sympathy for alternative medicine—or at least its right to be taken seriously. The inaugural volume in the Univ. of Chicago's ``Morality and Society'' series, which deals with ``moral issues from a social science perspective''—and, on every level, a sterling debut. (Two line drawings.)

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1992

ISBN: 0-226-26584-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Univ. of Chicago

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.