Cathedral-sized reconstruction of one year (September 1986- September 1987) in the life of the Catholic Church in America, by free-lance religion-journalist Briggs (National Catholic Reporter, etc.). A Protestant who believes that Catholicism is ``an essential point of reference for all other branches of Christianity,'' Briggs aims to bring to his study ``the disinterest of a journalist and the interest of a Christian.'' His method helps to maintain the even keel: Instead of spinning a sustained narrative filled with analysis, he glues together hundreds of ``snapshots''—most a few pages in length and depicting every shade of Catholic belief and practice—into a panoramic mosaic of the 60-million-strong American Catholic church. Briggs chose the right year, which begins with a Vatican clampdown on liberal theologian Charles Curran and ends with Pope John Paul II's triumphal US visit. As the months fly by, three forces come into play: the traditional church; the rebellious church, a child of Vatican II; and the general Catholic population, caught between the two. To personalize the struggle, Briggs scatters among his mosaic some ten interviews with archetypal Catholics, including a divorced mother, a professor, a Marine pilot, and a nun who favors women's ordination. He also describes three parishes (inner-city, Midwest suburban, East Coast traditional). The year crackles with news, including Mario Cuomo's run-in with Cardinal O'Connor over abortion; Catholic peace activists' defiance of the US Navy; and various issues that come to a boil, such as feminism, homosexuality, and reproductive technology. The mosaic coalesces into a colossal portrait of the American branch of the oldest, largest organization on earth—a branch splintered by left/right tensions but united in its adherence to the central trunk. Briggs paints both sides fairly and excels at portraying the charisma and tactical acumen that characterize the Pope's tap dance through the battlefield. A companion volume would be welcome to interpret the events. Nonetheless, for those who have the time, a gripper. (Photographs.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-061058-1
Page Count: 608
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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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