A great read for the patient but thirsty philosopher and soul searcher.
Our dreams may be more valuable than we know, says one visionary scholar.
It has been said that our dreams are simply the result of the subconscious mind trying to open a locked doorway to knowledge, and a pathway to memories that sometimes feel as tangible as reality. According to Jung, the father of analytical psychology, dreams come from the amount of an individual’s psychic energy and help determine whether they’re an extrovert or an introvert in waking life. This idea of dreams and manifested memories is at the crux of the debut work by philosophy scholar and professor Harris (St. John’s College, Univ. of Maryland). The author is not just a teacher, but a student of Jungian dream examination and how this idea crosses over to other philosophies, evolutionary linguistics and great works of literature and art. This all leads the spiritual traveler to a better understanding of what their dreams and memories mean and what our hearts truly desire. Through careful examination of concepts from titans like Aristotle, Plato, Jung, Nietzsche, Hegel, Asian philosophy mentor Roshi Zenkei Shibayama, Native American and Buddhist influences, Harris presents powerful intersecting ideas to the reader. He also draws parallels between literary works by Sophocles, Plato, Dante, Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Lady Murasaki, Ezra Pound and others. Works of art included in the book—from the collage on the front cover to the familiar sight of the eternal Ouroboros at the end—make an impact on the reader, and mathematics and poetics also play a role in defining the author’s desire to “shatter” common ways of thought. Like most philosophers espousing new ideas, Harris tends to speak at length to make his point at times, but the book is ultimately rewarding.
A great read for the patient but thirsty philosopher and soul searcher.Pub Date: May 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-1432776220
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Outskirts
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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