A vehement, lyrical restatement of biblical strictures, full of fire and brimstone.
This thunderous volume of Christian apologetics preaches New Testament dogma with Old Testament vigor.
Suwa, a Christian minister, writes chastening epistles in the voice of “the Lamb,” steeped in biblical rhetoric and cadences, addressed to persons and places that he believes symbolize various sins and apostasies. First in the rogue’s gallery is Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution, he says, “disparaged the Creation” with the “severe delusion” that “the fish wobbled out of the sea to become the hippo which then hurtled back into the ocean to become the whale”—a notion that he says is disproved by the book of Job. Other targets of the Lamb’s wrath include African nationals who cling to non-Christian faiths; dissolute pastors who put money, pleasure, and Sunday head counts ahead of piety (“your insatiate greed and the nakedness of your whoredoms are out in the sun”); and the so-called “Sodom and Gomorrah” of gay San Francisco (“you in the steps of Sappho, break free from this prison firmer than Alcatraz”). He also takes on paganlike environmentalists “bogged down and mired in the myth of Gaia”; the city of Salem, Massachusetts, for associating with occult beliefs and psychics; the city of Wichita, Kansas, apparently for having a homonym of “witch” in its name; and the United States, for general vice and blasphemy. Overall, Suwa provides little in the way of cogent argumentation to support any of his anathemas, relying instead on blunt reiteration of ancient verities (including footnotes with biblical references). Still, his writing offers an energetic, well-tuned reprise of the poetic, prophetic style of Scripture. People who belong to one of the groups Suwa criticizes (including Jews, Taoists, and abortion-rights supporters), and who don’t like it when clergymen tell them that God abhors their beliefs and lifestyles, may find this book offensive. However, readers for whom the aforementioned ancient verities are gospel may find it captivating.
A vehement, lyrical restatement of biblical strictures, full of fire and brimstone.Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68222-136-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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