A concise and compelling philosophical tale.
Anderson (Plato and Nietzsche, 2017, etc.) recounts a long-distance friendship between two students of Plato in this novel.
The text of this novel is mostly made up of a fictional “lost” novel (also called Thinking Life) by an obscure, early-20th-century Anglo-Italian philosopher and writer named Michael Tommasi. The story within it is narrated by an unnamed philosophy professor who recounts his interactions with another unnamed man—a “philosopher-artist” modeled on Friedrich Nietzsche, according to the fictional “editor” who rediscovered the work. The narrator—later nicknamed “Charmides,” after a figure in one of Plato’s dialogues—first meets the philosopher-artist while on vacation in the Alps: “He nodded politely as he passed, a mischievous gleam in his eye, and he rolled lightly in his stride with a gay sort of musicality.” The two bond over a love of Platonic philosophy, and their meandering conversations have a marked impact on the young narrator’s development. They continue to correspond by mail for many years, although the outbreak of World War I keeps them from seeing each other in person. It’s not until the narrator is a decade into a career in academia that he seeks to see his old friend again. Along the way, he muses on the death of his father, his relationship to alcohol, the changing landscape of academia, and the role of the philosopher (and philosopher-artist) in the world. Anderson’s prose, as filtered through the two fictional academics, Tommasi and “Charmides,” is suitably dense and allusive, although it also features frequent lyrical flourishes. In one memorable passage, for instance, “Charmides” notes that the philosopher-artist “once remarked that he loves mountain valleys with eyes, by which he meant with lakes. The image stays with me as a figure of nature personified, deified, of earth gazing into sky as a god contemplating the contents of its own mind.” As with many philosophical novels, the actual plot is nearly nonexistent. However, unlike many such works, it manages to be a compelling read nonetheless. The passion, doubt, and humility of the narrator make his investigations somehow feel urgent despite the author’s use of a distancing framing device.
A concise and compelling philosophical tale.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9967725-6-3
Page Count: 178
Publisher: S.Ph. Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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