Any message to be gleaned is buried beneath the slapdash presentation.
A muddled examination of the Bible and Christian doctrine.
Many Christian leaders do not know “the real Truth,” says Richie, who is here to set the record straight. He aims to summarize the basic teachings of the Bible; help Christians prepare themselves for the Lord’s return and the final judgment; and dispel false teachings that he believes pervade society. He begins with a consideration of eschatology–the doctrine of last things, or the end of the world–and argues that Christians will not escape the ultimate judgment. He also examines hell, the mission and work of Jesus and the doctrine of original sin, and he describes the City of God, which he claims to have envisioned in a dream. Richie insists that true believers will not be led into sin, and warns that well-meaning but gullible believers may be led astray by pastors who claim to be Christians, but who, in fact, lead lives marred by sin. Mainstream theologians would find that Richie often departs from the teachings of classical Christianity; his claim that “to limit the Godhead to just three is inconsistent with other evidence contained in the Bible,” for example, is a major revision of the doctrine of the Trinity. A certain pantheism creeps into the author’s arguments, as well, such as when he claims that should the universe be destroyed, God would be destroyed, too, since “God is the universe!” Throughout the book, the prose is garbled–“This is a book about myths within Christianity, yet it is not filled with all the myths now existing”–and the text is riddled with typos and grammatical errors–“recent years have brought revisions to Gods Word.” Worse, the book lacks a coherent structure, and often devolves into rambling, bully-pulpit proselytizing.
Any message to be gleaned is buried beneath the slapdash presentation.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2006
ISBN: 1-59800-837-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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