A disappointingly superficial treatment of the most revered female figure in the Western world. Pelikan, of Yale University, undoubtedly one of the outstanding scholars of Christian history, repeats a formula that worked quite well in his most recent book, Jesus Through the Centuries (1985): Follow the chronological development of a religious figure through 2,000 years of high culture and theology, organize your chapters around archetypal categories, and sprinkle liberally with literary quotations and discussions of art and music. Unfortunately, this time his approach misses the mark, for he almost entirely ignores the role of Mary in popular culture. Pelikan fails to acknowledge that even in the early Church Mary's impact on the popular imagination had already outpaced her theological importance. Details of such devotion are largely absent. For instance, Pelikan mentions in passing that a Mariocentric festival may have influenced a prominent fifth-century theologian, but we are told nothing about the festival itself, its rituals, or its participants. It is only toward the end of the book, in the brief chapter entitled ``Woman Clothed with the Sun,'' that Pelikan begins to address such matters as Mary's supposed appearances at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima. Here he implicitly notes, finally, that Marian miracles have meant more to ordinary folks than all of Mary's appearances in Dante and Milton put together. There are other flaws. After hyping the ``nigra sum'' (``I am black and beautiful'') connection in the introduction, Pelikan devotes only two pages to observing that the Madonna has appeared as a black goddess in many cultures. Some strengths of the book include Pelikan's comprehensive knowledge of Byzantine Christianity (sorely neglected by many scholars), his clear passion for art and music, and his easy writing style. The strengths unfortunately do not compensate for the book's foundational disregard of popular piety. (17 b&w and 16 color illustrations, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club/History Book Club selections)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-300-06951-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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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