An astute and informed, if eclectic, assemblage of essays.
An essay collection blends autobiography with broader observations about history, culture, and religion.
“We are a mystery to ourselves,” writes Giskin in this insightful volume, “so writing about oneself and one’s interests is both a revelatory act as well as a process of discovery.” The first two-thirds of the book’s 44 essays are autobiographical in nature, as the author offers vignettes from his childhood and observations about his own family, travels, and inner life. Having grown up in New York City in the early 1960s as his father completed a doctorate from Columbia University, Giskin delivers personal essays that effectively balance nostalgia and wit with poignant retrospective analyses on such topics as playgrounds, drive-in movies, and Halloween. An avid world traveler, the author offers readers nearly a dozen essays that use trips to Japan, Greece, Africa, and elsewhere as lenses through which to explore metaphysical concepts related to life, death, love, and humanity. The collection’s final third moves away from Giskin’s personal experiences and perspectives toward a broader commentary on culture, science, history, and philosophy. As a retired educator, the author has a solid grasp of art across genres and time periods, classical and modern philosophy and literature, and world religions. Essays in this section provide scholarly commentary, for instance, on the visual arts and include high-quality, color reproductions of various works. One piece provides an in-depth exploration of the poetry of Walt Whitman. Other essays analyze the poetry and art of World War I and critique Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History. Though an agnostic, Giskin, whose previous books on Chinese culture have been published by academic presses, is clearly influenced by Eastern spirituality and thought. A predilection toward concepts like Zen Buddhism, combined with the author’s American upbringing and deep knowledge of the Western canon of high culture, provides a unique, erudite perspective that thoughtful readers will appreciate. Alternately, Giskin’s “exercise of getting on paper things swarming about in my head” is at times disjointed, focusing on topics that are perhaps better suited for a separate collection.
An astute and informed, if eclectic, assemblage of essays.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-912280-2
Page Count: 342
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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