A miniature masterpiece of biblical exegesis. (28 pp. of full-color illustrations)
Wills dispenses with the diatribes against the Catholic hierarchy in Papal Sin (2000) to offer reverent reflections on the practice of the rosary.
Over the centuries the rosary became a sometimes-controversial emblem of Catholicism, especially in its association with indulgences (a linkage relegated to obscurity by recent pontiffs). In the post-Vatican II era, it has been regarded in some quarters as a quaint relic. Against this background, Wills defends the rosary in its purest form. In an age of confusion that has renewed interest in meditation, he notes, the rhythmic repetition of these beads invites practitioners “to retire into that secret of our deeper life in Christ, to reflect on his actions and their private meaning for us, and to do this at our own pace, seeking our own peace.” Pope John Paul II added a set of five “luminous mysteries,” or mysteries of light, to go with the traditional three sets: the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. Wills analyzes what the episodes associated with each mystery signify in the life of Jesus. In particular, he affirms the special status of Mary—accepting yet concerned about her son’s mission—against those who see her as a distraction from understanding Christ: “From the early struggles with heresy, it was her role to stand between some who thought Christ not fully human and some who thought him not fully divine.” When not sensitively explaining the rosary’s use in times of spiritual struggle, Wills employs vivid imagery, as in this description of a painting of the Annunciation by the Renaissance master Tintoretto: “The dove of the Holy Spirit plunges like a dive bomber, trailing a squadron of fighter angels.” The pretentiousness and sarcasm that sometimes marred Wills’ prior religious writings take a back seat here to his considerable erudition and eloquence.
A miniature masterpiece of biblical exegesis. (28 pp. of full-color illustrations)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03449-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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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