Diaries of a man who is justly called the Oskar Schindler of China. In December 1937, the Japanese army conquered and occupied the Chinese city of Nanking. What followed was, as Rabe notes, “destruction barbaric beyond all comprehension.” Japanese soldiers raped, tortured, and murdered indiscriminately, and in all, as many as 300,000 people were butchered. Rabe at this time was Nanking director of Siemens, the German industrial concern. He was also a member of the Nazi Party and an (apparently naive) admirer of Hitler. Easily able to leave the city, he chose to stay and by staying was able to blunt some of the effects of the Japanese onslaught. At first he simply opened his home to Chinese desperate for sanctuary: The number of refugees in his house and (not very large) yard eventually totaled 600. More significantly, he became head of an international committee that was able to create a safety zone in the city where it was hoped noncombatants would be afforded protection. Some 250,000 Chinese streamed into this zone, where, quite literally, the only thing standing between them and the depredations of the Japanese soldiers was the courage of Rabe and a handful of other Westerners. Rabe’s diaries describe in detail the atrocities committed by the Japanese, but also how Rabe cajoled, flattered, and when necessary bullied the Japanese authorities into tolerating the safety zone. Like Schindler, Rabe was quite aware that his Nazi affiliation afforded him a degree of influence and protection. This does not, however, account for the heroism and steadfastness with which he saved thousands of lives. Rabe’s dramatic—and perhaps, to some, ambiguous—tale shows how unremarkable people can sometimes do remarkable things, and how one evil can, sometimes, be used to fight another. (42 b&w photos, 2 maps) (First printing of 40,000)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1998
ISBN: 0-375-40211-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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