Struggles against racism, marital abuse and obesity yield life-lessons in this self-help manifesto.
Growing up as a mixed-race second-class citizen under South Africa’s apartheid regime gave the author plenty of obstacles to overcome, including an inferior education, job discrimination and the daily humiliation of pass laws. Equally rankling was her family’s membership in a strict Christian denomination—her father was a minister—that accepted white supremacy and sexism and imparted a dour worldview dripping with guilt and fear of hellfire. Worst of all was her 18-year marriage to a violent, sadistic man (another minister) who beat her in front of their daughters, raped her at knife-point and dunked her head in a vomit-filled toilet bowl. Mercuur’s account of violations both intimate and impersonal, and of the helplessness and depression they induced, is full of harrowing detail; readers will be moved by her perseverance—she rose to become a bank executive—and by her efforts to understand and forgive the injuries she suffered. The book falters when she tries to elaborate a philosophy from her travails. In long-winded, meandering, repetitive passages, Mercuur harps on a set of simplistic or vague principles: seek sustained improvement instead of mere change; think for yourself rather than accepting dogmas imposed by others; pitilessly search for truth, which can only be apprehended by “physical knowledge” gleaned from the five senses; take personal responsibility for everything that happens to you, racial oppression included. The practical focus of her creed is on weight loss, which she undertakes with the help of an old high-school flame who became her guru after her husband’s death; the regimen of “isolated muscle training” that he put her on constitutes the only concrete advice she has for readers. Alas, Mercuur’s obsession with fitness and appearance results in insights—“Who we are physically displays who we are spiritually”—that are dubious and uninspiring. A riveting biography weighed down by dull, superficial pensées.
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-1439256305
Page Count: 232
Publisher: BookSurge
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Feeble.
Brazilian Coelho (renowned for The Alchemist, 1993) has sold over 35 million copies worldwide and been translated into 54 languages. His latest may end up in the same enviable boat.
Each Coelho offering is slightly different in form but similar in voice—a voice that can be uplifting or chock-a-block with placebos of the religio-saccharine. The author’s best is The Fifth Mountain (1998), about the prophet Elijah’s battle for monotheism and his rise to heaven—still alive—in a chariot of fire. This time out, Coelho compiles parables and meditations first published over a three-year period in a column called “Maktub” in Folha de São Paulo and other newspapers in Brazil and elsewhere. The compilation is framed by a brief parable—or, if compared to Tolstoy’s steel-etched parables, by a bit of fluff. A strange woman tells a boy from a fishing village, “Just off the beach to the west of the village lies an island, and on it is a vast temple with many bells.” The boy spends many fruitless seasons sifting on the beach and becomes the butt of jokes from his mates as he waits to hear the bells. Only when the beauty of the seagulls’ cries, the roar of the sea, and the wind blowing through the palm trees become one to him does he at last hear them. The woman returns and hands him a blue notebook full of blank pages and tells him that, as a Warrior of the Light, one who understands the miracle of life and yet still has a child’s eyes, he must write down the path that led to his being a Warrior. Sample: “Sometimes Evil pursues a Warrior of the Light, and when it does, he calmly invites it into his tent . . . . When he has heard everything, he gets up and leaves. Evil feels so weary and empty after all this talk that it does not have the strength to follow him”).
Feeble.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-052797-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Plausible being or just a pop culture fantasy? The author believes Bigfoot is truly out there, but skeptics won’t be...
Out of the Maine woods stomps cryptozoologist Coleman, a hunter of undocumented animals who has been tracking the spoor of Sasquatch for four decades.
“The classic Bigfoot is a real animal living in the montane forests of the Pacific Rim,” asserts the author. From Bluff Creek, California, to Fouke, Arkansas, from the Everglades to Lake Louise, the skittish, neck-challenged critters may vary somewhat according to local habitat but they are typically, in Coleman’s description, twice as big as Sylvester Stallone, grungier than Ted Kaczynski, and louder than Gilbert Gottfried, howling and crying “eeek-eeek-eeek and sooka-sooka-sooka.” (They’re stinky too.) The hairy fellows have been around distressing the dogs for some time, claims the author. He notes the feral phantom’s history in relation to Native American culture, Neanderthals, and the Jolly Green Giant. Coleman dismisses the notion that hoaxers making wooden footprint impressions are responsible and considers but discounts the possibility of a UFO nexus. Though the hirsute troglodyte seems to have been spotted more frequently than post-mortem Elvis, actual physical evidence is not easily obtained. One putative carcass, now lost, was exhibited at state fairs, stock shows, and shopping malls along with antique tractors. Remains in the wild haven’t been recovered, but, hey, when was the last time you found the bones of a bear in the woods? Some hair and droppings have turned up, but DNA analysis has so far been useless. There is certainly some convincing film of a female—and that is absolutely not a zipper under her fur. Coleman discusses Hollywood’s treatment of Bigfoot, notes the animal’s sex habits, reviews many classic sightings, and cites many “experts” who seem to have published primarily in journals like Argosy and True magazine.
Plausible being or just a pop culture fantasy? The author believes Bigfoot is truly out there, but skeptics won’t be convinced by this pastiche. (Illustrations)Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7434-6975-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Paraview/Pocket
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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