Digressive, impenetrable writing leads disappointingly to bewilderment.
This confusing debut collection of homilies, personal reminiscences, and treatises by Mody raises the possibility of a blissful existence but struggles to convey how.
“Just step out of the lingering painful memories and get rid of stress, tension and anxiety from life as we all are BORN TO LIVE A BLISSFUL LIFE,” proclaims the frontispiece of this self-help guide. The 532 pages that follow are a mishmash of fictional stories intended to bring enlightenment, anecdotal life lessons learned by Mody, and essays on life’s evils and how to avoid them. The book opens with a story about a “saint” who meets a robber. The saint asks the robber to ask his family members if they approve of his villainous activities. The outcome of the story is that the saint pricks the robber’s conscience, resulting in him changing his ways. This is followed by an essay on how mothers are pivotal in deterring their children from becoming terrorists, rapists, and mass murderers. There is also a peculiar tale about a priest who is reserving tickets to see a Shakespeare play and, in a conversation with the theater manager, learns that “one cannot escape from one’s own conscience.” The collection includes details of the author’s medical history and dogs. This highly digressive book would benefit from being thoroughly edited for clarity: “The overall surroundings are such that it becomes difficult to restrict youngsters trapped in to certain pockets where they lured to become offenders, criminals or terrorists. We all know that the modern technological gadgets make the process much easier for those who want to misuse.” This writing style makes an already amorphous subject all the more difficult to grasp. Mody’s opinion on children with disabilities, whom he refers to as “special children,” may prove uncomfortable for some readers: “A special child is born so as ultimately to qualify parents and all concerned for elevation during this life or afterlife.” This book is difficult to read and rarely clearly conveys, explains, or supports any of its complex ideas. Despite its sometimes contentious viewpoint, there is a sense that it was written with the benevolent hope of improving society, even if it falls significantly short of the mark in its execution.
Digressive, impenetrable writing leads disappointingly to bewilderment.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4917-6360-5
Page Count: 544
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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