This primer on the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church provides useful information for the uninitiated but ultimately falls under the weight of the author's extreme bias in favor of his faith. Johnson, a former syndicated religion columnist, clearly loves the Catholic Church. He even points out that its name is a misnomer: It is ``the Church.'' All other Christian denominations are simply sects, in need of names to differentiate them from the Church. Though seemingly partisan, this is just one of the interesting facts that emerge here for those not schooled in Catholic dogma and custom. The first section, ``Faith,'' deals with Church doctrine. Topics include traditions, the biblical canon, and the place of the Hebrew scriptures. The author also discusses how the Church legislates and why it can't simply change doctrine ``as Protestant denominations do'' on issues such as birth control (Christianity is a revealed religion, he says, and ``has to stick with precisely what was revealed, never to alter it''). The ``Worship'' section includes an explanation of liturgy and the mass, as well as discussions of the sacraments, the Church calendar, funerals, and rosary beads. ``Culture'' treats the polity of the institution, monasticism, the role of saints, and supposed miracles such as weeping Madonnas and the Shroud of Turin. The final chapter, ``Customs,'' rounds up diverse expressions of devotion, including church music, the sign of the cross, incense, and holy relics. An ``ask-your-local-library'' postscript provides an annotated bibliography for those who want to explore further. This reverential volume has received the authorized imprimatur of the Catholic Church. So, although Johnson declares, ``If the idea of Christianity is to embrace the teachings of Christ, you have an infinite range of choices of how to express that faith,'' the rest of the book will lead readers to believe he doesn't mean it.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-345-38116-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
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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