Bohemian exegesis.
Wide-ranging introductions to books of the Bible.
This book collects for the first time introductions written by 33 authors—E.L. Doctorow, Charles Frazier, Nick Cave and the Dalai Lama among them—for the late-’90s book series Pocket Canons. The non-religious; lapsed members of a faith tradition; and those on the margins of a tradition comprise the majority of contributors. They seem to have been chosen, as editor Holloway states in his introduction, to demolish a “blinkered and partisan view of the Bible.” Approaches vary widely: There are heartfelt reflections, academic regurgitations, political statements. Unfortunately, despite the title, there are only limited revelations. A few writers do offer meaningful and personal reflections on their assigned text, Bono (on The Book of Psalms) and Darcey Steinke (on The Gospel According to John) included. But the authors for the most part spend a great deal of energy on well-studied academic discussion, leaving limited room for personal musings. In too many cases (especially regarding Old Testament books), they react to their subjects first and foremost through the lens of historical criticism: Once a text’s legitimacy as truth has been sufficiently questioned, the material is approached as myth or poetry.
Bohemian exegesis.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-84195-737-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Canongate
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
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
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
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