Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE MAN AND THE WOMAN by John J. and Sister Maureen O'Keefe Evoy

THE MAN AND THE WOMAN

By

Pub Date: Aug. 21st, 1968
Publisher: Sheed & Ward

The subtitle of this little book, ""The Psychology of Human Love,"" is slightly misleading, since the book is not so much a psychological treatise as it is a direct descendant of the Ciceronic tracts, usually entitled ""De Amititia"", that were so popular from Roman and Greek antiquity to the time of Emerson. It shares with that genre literature a propensity for nonsequiturs. It also shares with it a high degree of -- not ""idealism,"" as the authors would have us believe, but of nonrealism which often takes the form of wish-fulfillment. Woman, generically, they tell us is ""a deeply religious person. Persons are sacred to her, and she is grateful to God and people for all she is and has. Because she finds meaning to life, she is wholesomely optimistic."" And so on. It is likely the readers of this book will find their own experiences widely at variance with those of Father Evoy and Sister Maureen. If so, the book will have represented a rather dull flight into the realm of sterile fancy.