A well-told story, crisp with particulars, of the fundamental engagement of a Western family with the lives of ordinary...
A son strives to understand his father, an iconoclastic Methodist missionary to India during the ’20s and ’30s.
Williams’ father, Fred, arrived in India in 1921 as part of the Methodist ministry. He was, from the start, called “to help meet people’s mundane human needs down here on planet Earth,” writes Williams in an easeful, searching voice. Fred understood the evangelical aspects of his mission–to convert as many Hindus to Christianity as he could–but this soon lost any meaning when it failed to address urgent, everyday concerns. He was drawn to the philosophical, political and cross-cultural issues that roiled India during these pre-independence days, and Williams evokes them all with bite and immediacy. There, on the plains of Bengal, Fred partook in an experiment in rural education, cutting like a torch through the Hindu caste system, convincing his students to appreciate the dignity of labor–in that anything removing us from our work, removes us from our lives–inhabiting elegant, appropriate mud houses and making good use of the glories of a sanitation system. Proselytizing took a back seat to encouraging self-government, countering conditions that led to disease, poking moneylenders in the eye and curbing population growth. There was an enormous need to handle infant and female health care, which Williams found of greater value than “foisting one’s religion on others.” None of this, Williams admits, exempts his parents from ingrained colonial superiorities. Still, they were ready to relinquish their Western lifestyle and embrace the clothing and food of their neighbors, and their desire for independence. Everything would come to a head in India with Gandhi–the challenge to tradition and custom, undermining the hierarchy of class that suffocated independence. Williams’ parents, who forged a friendship with the iconic leader, joined the fray, offering practical advice in place of tallying another Christian.
A well-told story, crisp with particulars, of the fundamental engagement of a Western family with the lives of ordinary Indians during a pivotal moment in history.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-0-595-46500-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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