An ambitious project that buckles under the weight of its own complexity.
A psychiatrist uses his personal experiences and stories from many different times and cultures in an attempt to redefine the public perception of psychic phenomena.
In this debut treatise on unexplainable events, Matas starts with an account of his own brushes with death and how they affected his worldview. His goal is to persuade readers that paranormal activity, such as extrasensory perception, prophetic visions, and spirits, is real, and he does so through example. Along the way, he draws from sources from across Western civilization, including Albert Einstein’s well-known description of quantum mechanics as “spooky action at a distance.” The breadth of his references is remarkable, but it’s overwhelming how he addresses so much rich subject matter so quickly. At one point, for example, he head-spinningly jumps from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy to thoughts of experts in physiology and aerospace engineering in the space of a single page. Matas does go a step further in this book than most proponents of the paranormal, however, by acknowledging its many critics. But he also asserts that righteous skepticism runs up against two problems. First, he says that scientists can’t ever completely “prove” a theory—they can merely show it to be consistent with all the data they have at the moment. So Matas argues that science can only show that the supernatural is either very unlikely or very hard to detect. Second, he expresses the belief that premonitions, near-death experiences, and hallucinations are integral to the human experience. When skeptics ignore or reject them, he says, they deny the lived experiences of many people around them. In his history of the paranormal in media, Matas describes his premonition of the twist end to the 2016 film Arrival in a two-line couplet that he wrote 30 years before—a kind of cosmic reminder that time is nonlinear. However, compared to the grandiosity of the previous mysticism in the book, this mundane point falls flat; there’s just something incredibly unsatisfactory about the idea of the cosmos speaking through blockbuster movies.
An ambitious project that buckles under the weight of its own complexity.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5255-0455-6
Page Count: 228
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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