Turgid past-life regression story in which the author claims to find herself through exploring her former existence as King Arthur's queen and would-be successor in fifth century Britain. Phelan has worked as a past-life regression therapist for ten years in England and Canada. She believes that the doctrine of reincarnation and recall of past lives will lead the planet to universal love as we learn to activate the right hemisphere of our brains and realize that we have all been members of the opposite sex and of other religions and races. The scenario of her own regression as Queen Guinevere is the rear-guard action being fought by the Celts and Romanized Britons against invading Picts and Saxons. Phelan tells us how Guinevere was raised to be a warrior by her father, a brave Celtic chieftain, but soon finds that her zeal for battle does not go down well in her husband Arthur's sexist Briton world. In her struggle to escape gender stereotyping, Merlin, Arthur's counselor, turns out to be an unexpected ally, while her archenemy is Morgana, the king's jealous half-sister. When Guinevere has an abortion in order to avoid ruining her future as Arthur's second-in-command, Morgana uses sorcery to conceive a child by her half-brother. At Arthur's death, Guinevere fails to rally his men and continue the fight because she is a woman, and she commits suicide in the ruins of Arthur's castle. But our author finds healing when she hears Arthur's voice forgiving her. Phelan's melodramatic account of her fifth century world is dominated by very contemporary feminist issues and by the rejection of Christianity as an alienating, patriarchal creed in favor of a wistful vision of Celtic ways. Though no doubt quite sincere, this reads more like historical romance than a voyage of self-discovery.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-671-52611-1
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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