Requires a lot of work and yields little reward.
Feminist theorist and self-proclaimed “revolting hag” Daly (Outercourse, 1993, etc.) offers a sharp-tongued assessment of today’s political landscape.
“For readers who cannot Hear written words in their heads and feel them as they read, it is especially important to Speak them Out Loud,” writes the author. This proves to be helpful advice, since such impenetrable phrases as, “Some Trivial Women… proclaim that this must be the Time of Times for manifestations of Trans-spatial/Transtemporal and Intergalactic consciousness,” might make a little more sense when read aloud, repeatedly. Getting beyond Daly’s peculiar language, one sees that the core of her polemic is not especially original. She asserts that patriarchy has been around for only about 5,000 years; before that, everyone lived in societies that were peaceful and gynocratic, a term she prefers to “matriarchal,” because “matriarchy” implies that all women have children. Today, society is experiencing a backlash, she continues. The patriarchy has separated women from each other and appointed reactionaries like Condoleezza Rice to positions of power so the rest of us will be fooled into thinking that women are in the forefront. Profoundly concerned about rampant environmental degradation, Daly suggests that the fate of women is closely linked to the fate of the planet. Much of the book is presented as imaginary dialogues between the author and such figures as 19th-century activist Matilda Joslyn Gage. Though the state of things is depressing, declares Daly, we can still laugh, listen well to one another and see the current moment as an opportunity for inaugurating a new style of politics and community.
Requires a lot of work and yields little reward.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4039-6853-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition.
In her debut, Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker staff writer Boo creates an intimate, unforgettable portrait of India’s urban poor.
Mumbai’s sparkling new airport and surrounding luxury hotels welcome visitors to the globalized, privatized, competitive India. Across the highway, on top of tons of garbage and next to a vast pool of sewage, lies the slum of Annawadi, one of many such places that house the millions of poor of Mumbai. For more than three years, Boo lived among and learned from the residents, observing their struggles and quarrels, listening to their dreams and despair, recording it all. She came away with a detailed portrait of individuals daring to aspire but too often denied a chance—their lives viewed as an embarrassment to the modernized wealthy. The author poignantly details these many lives: Abdul, a quiet buyer of recyclable trash who wished for nothing more than what he had; Zehrunisa, Abdul’s mother, a Muslim matriarch among hostile Hindu neighbors; Asha, the ambitious slum leader who used her connections and body in a vain attempt to escape from Annawadi; Manju, her beautiful, intelligent daughter whose hopes lay in the new India of opportunity; Sunil, the master scavenger, a little boy who would not grow; Meena, who drank rat poison rather than become a teenage bride in a remote village; Kalu, the charming garbage thief who was murdered and left by the side of the road. Boo brilliantly brings to life the residents of Annawadi, allowing the reader to know them and admire the fierce intelligence that allows them to survive in a world not made for them.
The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6755-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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