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MESSENGERS OF THE GODS

TRIBAL ELDERS REVEAL THE ANCIENT WISDOM OF THE EARTH

A lackluster presentation of luminous source material, by an Australian expert in native religions (Letters from a Wild State, 1992). Burnt out by modern life and its ``science-based'' approach to nature, Cowan sets out to discover the ``wild and untrammeled spirit'' of traditional life. His first stop is the Torres Strait Islands, between Australia and New Guinea, where he meets a former pearl-diver, a police inspector, and other carriers of traditional values. Some bewail the loss of their ancient culture; others preserve—and relay to Cowan—fascinating myths and legends about the sea, the lore of totems, the secrets of augury with lizards and ants. Then it's on to Borneo, where Cowan encounters a self-proclaimed pagan named Reminda, who takes him upcountry to the long house of her Iban people. From this former head-hunting tribe, Cowan learns the sacred laws of the region and watches a tuai burong—a man who speaks with birds—manipulate omen sticks. Cowan's third stop is Australia, where he talks to aborigines about the loss of traditional ways and about methods of communing with spirits. On each leg of his odyssey, Cowan gathers indigenous myths, including some material never before made available. The problem is that he approaches his quest with grating naivetÇ, bursting out every so often with a sentiment like, ``I had begun to discern that a myth does not have to be comprehensible at all levels of consciousness''—these days, about as groundbreaking a revelation as declaring that the earth is round. Some of Cowan's analogies are equally maladroit, as when he finds in a legend of the rape of a fisherwoman by an octopus-god echoes of the Annunciation. Cowan cites the late Bruce Chatwin as inspiration, but there's no comparison: Chatwin was a master recorder of native ways, while Cowan comes close to stifling his material in an ill-fitting frame. Impressive on-site research, bungled in delivery. (Three maps)

Pub Date: July 2, 1993

ISBN: 0-517-88078-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

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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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.

“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0

Page Count: 200

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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