A fascinating spiritual composition of one soul’s journey through hundreds of incarnations.
The latest from Goddart (Bliss,1999, etc.) is a veritable epic of reincarnation literature; the author outlines the 4,137 lives he says he has lived prior to his present incarnation.
The author’s various existences extend thousands of years into the past and sprawl over all kinds of occupations, ages, races, and cultures delineated here in quick vignettes corresponding to the “recovering” experiences the author has undergone since 2013. He was an herbalist working in Warwick, England, from 1181 to 1204 (“I died of illness,” he relates. “Life was tough in those days”). He was a mathematician in Sigtuna, Sweden, where he worked doing administrative duties for the school to which he was attached. He was a teacher of young boys in many cultures and climates, including ancient Greece—memories of which were triggered by the author reading Mary Renault’s ancient Greece novels. (Goddart notes ironically that he was grateful to “confirm” that he’s never had lives in ancient Rome or Egypt: “This should relieve all those women and men who ‘were’ Cleopatra.”) In addition to tracing his own incarnations throughout all these ages, he also follows the “Cohort of Seven,” a group of similarly reincarnated beings who’ve been accompanying him. And in all of this, Goddart pays attention to the grander themes of reincarnation—the goal of living significant lives by concentrating on “karmas” over the centuries. “Karma: Again, the good and bad debts that we accumulate through our actions, speech, and thoughts,” he writes. “We have the current karmas of this life, the new ones we create, and our great, great reserve of karmas that is the accumulation from millions of lives.” There’s a good deal of vibrancy in Goddart’s piece-by-piece tapestry of his extended personal past, particularly in its free-flowing treatment of concepts that are typically fixed in accounts like this, such as gender and particularly sexuality: In his earlier lives, Goddart was often “homophile,” his term for men loving men before terms like “homosexual” were coined. And Goddart’s larger concepts are touched on regularly enough to bring cohesion to the entire work; “there’s a purpose to human life,” he writes, “a specific purpose for each human life.” The author is continuously listening to his sanskaras, the warning bells that alert him to the details of previous lives. Those details are strictly for fans of reincarnation literature who will find Goddart’s account both fascinating and ambitious, an attempt to map the entire tangled biography of one spirit. Nonfans will read Goddart’s claims about having lived lives on alien planets and in mythological locations like Atlantis over 17,000 years ago and will determine immediately that all of this is fantasy, but then, the book probably isn’t for them.
A fascinating spiritual composition of one soul’s journey through hundreds of incarnations.Pub Date: June 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944037-84-0
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Clear Path Press
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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