A light look at a heavy subject, the conflicting imperatives of wealth and commonwealth. One of the surest routes to prosperity in a market society is to fleece your neighbor. Effectively exploiting those around you while retaining a claim to high moral standards, however, can be challenging: Accumulating wealth usually requires relentless attention to self-interest, while moral behavior usually requires concern for others. In this walk through American history, O’Toole (The Five of Hearts, 1990) discovers that Americans have seemingly always wanted to have it both ways, to enrich themselves and feel good about it, too. To illustrate the unresolvable nature of this tension she presents a series of vignettes highlighting selected individuals and movements, and unveiling a wide range of perspectives on money and morals. Naturally, the Puritans lead the way with a peculiar obsession with wealth that left them “trembling on the edge of a blade,” torn between accumulating it as a sign of God’s blessing and fearing it as a path to the sin of pride. The 12 stories that follow range from the familiar fare of mainstream history (e.g., Ben Franklin, Emerson and Thoreau, slavery, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford) to less-well-known and often intriguing efforts to merge capitalism and morality (e.g., the origins of Georgia, the textile mills of Lowell, Mass., the Agrarian challenge to big business, Henry J. Kaiser, Whitney Young, William C. Norris, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility). Throughout, the prose provides a lively counterpoint to the heavy subject matter, elevating what could have been a moralistic tome to the level of a genuinely enjoyable read. The lack of a real conclusion is disappointing, but this is a historical volume in which the story is to be continued. This book succeeds because O’Toole is serious about morality without being preachy and accepts the appeal of wealth without worshiping mammon while addressing a subject where Americans often do both.
Pub Date: May 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-517-58693-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
The name of C.S. Lewis will no doubt attract many readers to this volume, for he has won a splendid reputation by his brilliant writing. These sermons, however, are so abstruse, so involved and so dull that few of those who pick up the volume will finish it. There is none of the satire of the Screw Tape Letters, none of the practicality of some of his later radio addresses, none of the directness of some of his earlier theological books.
Pub Date: June 15, 1949
ISBN: 0060653205
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949
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