An unfocused and pointless environmentalist anthology of stories from oral traditions. Elder (English and Environmental Studies/Middlebury College; Following the Brush, 1993) and Wong (English/Berkeley; Sending My Heart Across the Years, not reviewed) set out to collect stories of nature from indigenous peoples around the globe. Their aim is to help readers enlarge their ``ethical circle'' by seeing nature as something to which they have an immediate and tangible connection. Their task is complicated because the storytellers themselves don't distinguish ``nature stories'' from other stories. Similar problems are set forth but never properly addressed in the brief introduction. Stories in the volume are grouped under four rubrics. Under ``Origins'' are creation tales: the Mohawk story of diving creatures who bring mud up from the water's bottom to create a dry place for the first woman to rest; the Tahitian story of Tangaroa, who literally cannibalizes his own body to create the world; and others. ``Animal Tales and Transformations'' includes stories, often didactic, in which humans turn into animals and vice versa. ``Tricksters'' includes stories of the now familiar Coyote, Raven of the Pacific Northwest, and Anansi of Africa and the Caribbean, among others. The final section, ``Tales to Live By,'' offers nonfiction pieces by notables, including Leslie Silko, Rigoberta Menchu, and N. Scott Momaday. There are entries from places as diverse as Finland, India, and Korea, and because of a porous definition of ``indigenous,'' English folk tales (``The Rollright Stones'') and African-American characters (Brer Rabbit and Terrapin) are also included. All stories have appeared in print elsewhere before, and an ``Acknowledgements'' section at the end gives sources. Useless to serious students and confusing to the popular audience for which it is intended, the book bears a passing resemblance to Story Earth by the Inter Press Service, from which several of the pieces in the final section are drawn.
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-8070-8528-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An astonishing true saga of incarceration that would have surely faced rejection if submitted as a novel on the grounds that...
A man who spent four decades in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit tells his shocking story.
Born in 1947 in the “Negro” wing of a New Orleans hospital, Woodfox helped his family eke out survival through petty crimes. Though he showed academic potential, he left high school before graduation, spending his time on streets patrolled by mostly white police officers, who “came through our neighborhood picking up black men for standing on the corner, charging them with loitering or vagrancy, looking to meet their quota of arrests. Once in custody, who knows what charges would be put on those men.” Arrested at 18, the author entered Angola penitentiary, where his defiance and his affiliation with a nonviolent chapter of the Black Panther Party led to racist, sadistic guards targeting him. When a white prison guard was mysteriously murdered while on duty, prison officials framed Woodfox for the killing despite his detailed presentation of evidence that another inmate had committed the crime. The bulk of the book chronicles the author’s solitary confinement over the next 40 years. In many cases, inmates subjected to these brutal conditions slowly lose their sanity and sometimes commit suicide. Woodfox explains how he overcame those odds despite relentless despair. Through a series of unusual occurrences, public-interest lawyers and other prison reformers learned about his treatment. The activists began building a two-pronged case, advocating for a declaration of innocence regarding the murder and seeking an end to Woodfox’s solitary confinement. Though the author is obviously not an impartial source, that understandable bias mingles throughout the narrative with fierce intelligence and the author’s touching loyalty to fellow prisoners also being brutalized. Nearly every page of the book is depressing because of the inhumane treatment of the prisoners, which often surpasses comprehension. But it’s an important story for these times, and readers will cheer the author’s eventual re-entry into society.
An astonishing true saga of incarceration that would have surely faced rejection if submitted as a novel on the grounds that it never could happen in real life.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2908-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
