Mysterious and mystical reflections, disjointed and hurried.
In this slim volume, Landoll relates a vision she had of Jesus, Moses, the devil, and heaven.
Landoll had several other visions before this particular vision, but this one seemed to be the most complex and vivid. In it, Landoll found herself on a dark path that led to a set of gates opening onto a bright valley. Among the wonders of the valley, a “devil man” accosted her, but she was rescued by angels and taken to Jesus. She communicated with Jesus both verbally and telepathically about a variety of topics, through which she realized that “spirit satisfies, not matter.” Her appearance changed drastically during this time, and she was given visions of her future as well. She was then baptized and anointed, then took communion. After that, she encountered Moses, an angel, and the Holy Ghost before witnessing what she believes to be Armageddon. Landoll’s narrative is somewhat jumpy, with variable chapter lengths and a generally disorganized presentation. The prose is descriptive and rich, though it often varies in tone: “the street…was the purest of gold I had ever seen as if it had a sheet of glass covering it,” while elsewhere, “a lot of fluid and crap flowed out of his mouth as he threw up frogs and bled, too.” With its abrupt ending, the narrative has an unfinished feel, since Landoll doesn’t come to any particular conclusions besides deciding to no longer listen to secular music. Numerous typos—in a hailstorm, “Several hit me didn’t kill me”—don’t help. Readers who are interested in prophecy and writing inspired by direct contact with the divine may find symbols and mysteries to ponder, but others are unlikely to be able to decipher Landoll’s tale.
Mysterious and mystical reflections, disjointed and hurried.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477288900
Page Count: 56
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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