A straightforward and engaging look at how humans conduct affairs with the Earth.
An entertaining, tenable overview of why humans behave like dolts when it comes to protecting the environment.
“The simple truth is that humanity is poisoning the world,” writes Chism. According to the author, our animal emotions have been operating for millions of years so it is our ancient lineage to keep operating as such. Our cerebral cortex has but a 100,000-year history; our thinking is stepchild to our hardwiring, and the ancient hardwiring still dominates; and evolutionary instincts such as fear, status (regulating self-esteem and self-confidence), clannishness, sex and violence remain in sway. Our socialization and belief systems give us the narrowest of compasses; emotions provide motivational energy; and denial demands us to meet threats to our belief systems (personality traits colored by a moral and aesthetic sensibility) with dismissal or force. In the service of clarity and implementation–though Chism appreciates complexity, nuance and interconnectedness as well and quietly works them into his argument–he has synthesized and reduced a good swath of intellectual history to make his end product bell-clear. “We can override our ancient programming by employing discipline through reasoning and logic, but it is much like swimming upstream,” which is very much counter to our lizard brain, ruled by us-versus-them, desperate consumption and the swagger of tribal status. In the modern world, our brains–tuned to a small population and absent of technology–are feeding us a cyanide pill. It will take much time, writes Chism, to quell the urge to reproduce in suicidal numbers, achieve consumption sustainably, and stanch cultural arrogance and the fears that incite hatred. Chism’s thesis is lively and provocative, but he can be naïve about the historical particularities of international politics–witness his thoughts on Afghanistan–and when he offers comments like “we need to mobilize the world’s celebrities…to popularize zero emission fuels.”
A straightforward and engaging look at how humans conduct affairs with the Earth.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-6151-5686-6
Page Count: 158
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.
The undisputed champion of the self-conscious and the self-deprecating returns with yet more autobiographical gems from his apparently inexhaustible cache (Naked, 1997, etc.).
Sedaris at first mines what may be the most idiosyncratic, if innocuous, childhood since the McCourt clan. Here is father Lou, who’s propositioned, via phone, by married family friend Mrs. Midland (“Oh, Lou. It just feels so good to . . . talk to someone who really . . . understands”). Only years later is it divulged that “Mrs. Midland” was impersonated by Lou’s 12-year-old daughter Amy. (Lou, to the prankster’s relief, always politely declined Mrs. Midland’s overtures.) Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedaris—soon after she’s put a beloved sick cat to sleep—is terrorized by bogus reports of a “miraculous new cure for feline leukemia,” all orchestrated by her bitter children. Brilliant evildoing in this family is not unique to the author. Sedaris (also an essayist on National Public Radio) approaches comic preeminence as he details his futile attempts, as an adult, to learn the French language. Having moved to Paris, he enrolls in French class and struggles endlessly with the logic in assigning inanimate objects a gender (“Why refer to Lady Flesh Wound or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”). After months of this, Sedaris finds that the first French-spoken sentiment he’s fully understood has been directed to him by his sadistic teacher: “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” Among these misadventures, Sedaris catalogs his many bugaboos: the cigarette ban in New York restaurants (“I’m always searching the menu in hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable”); the appending of company Web addresses to television commercials (“Who really wants to know more about Procter & Gamble?”); and a scatological dilemma that would likely remain taboo in most households.
Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-316-77772-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
PERSPECTIVES
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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