A smorgasbord of unusual short pieces that sometimes enlightens but often befuddles.
Talentino turns his father’s written recollections of his colorful life (as, among other things, a hockey player and a priest) into a monumental ethical, metaphysical, and spiritual meditation.
Each of the book’s three sections includes a large handful of pieces ranging from one to several pages in length, all created by James Talentino, the author’s father. In one episode, James describes his experience working as an English teacher and battling parents fearful of the literature he was teaching. Despite these protestations, he persisted, eventually introducing his students to John Donne’s poetry. In response, the awed students gave a moving performance—with James reading the poems—of Donne’s works with the violin accompaniment of another student. In a brief essay in which James details a conversation with his friends, one mentioned being called a freak after showing her daughter physical affection in public. James and his friends agreed that a new word was needed for those who wished to be demonstrative, so they settled on “Butterflies.” Besides involving the frequent invention of words, these reflections muse on grammar, sex, race, organized religion, and the meaning of nobility and dignity. At times, the chapters are so nebulous that it becomes difficult to tell whether they are meant as memoir, poetry, or even fiction, as when the Buddha appears to James as he sits beneath a tree along the Mississippi. The hyperfragmented structure of this book, and the sometimes-awkward style in which it is written, often thwart even patient attempts to comprehend; e.g., “RU who UR 2 be free ButterflyFree be free.” Though it offers sensitive insights, there is little cohesion overall, and the assertions of the book’s importance in its introduction are off-putting.
A smorgasbord of unusual short pieces that sometimes enlightens but often befuddles.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5121-6475-6
Page Count: 626
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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