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ON DIALOGUE

AN ESSAY IN FREE THOUGHT

A professor's casual, more or less philosophical ruminations on the liberating function of dialogue. This volume of Grudin's philosophical essays follows Time and the Art of Living (1988) and The Grace of Great Things (1990). The tone of this collection is conversational, and its intention is vague. Perhaps it aims, as the publisher opines, to reveal ``how the use of dialogue can open the door to greater creativity.'' It often has the feel of a self-help book, as when Grudin (Literature and Humanities/Univ. of Oregon) talks about dialogue between lovers. But his interdisciplinary ambitions are much larger. He explains how dialogue can fix the former Soviet Union; how it can renew the university; how it makes science work; how it is an intrinsic element of American freedom; how it functions in literature; how it can heal the breach between nature and modern consciousness. Though the amiable Grudin is often entertaining and imaginative, he conceives of dialogue in an impossibly amorphous way. Dialogue has a long tradition in philosophical thinking, but Grudin does not bother to position himself within that tradition. In addition there is much preening: he likes to tell the reader about his sabbaticals to prestigious universities, trips to interesting places, dealings and with big publishers. And what will happen when the world at last cottons on to the Grudin dialogics (which he finds already at work in environmentalism)? ``The mental landscape of Western intellectuals will be much less alienated, much closer to the vision of a mystic and intuitive confidence of a child. Community and engagement will become intellectual rallying cries, and the European prophets of alienation and absurdity will leave the bookstore shelves to join the Chartists and Prohibitionists in underground library repositories. There will be just as many loonies and dilettantes as ever, but everybody will be happier.'' Nostradamus in a tweed jack and a Volvo.

Pub Date: June 26, 1996

ISBN: 0-395-77187-0

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

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

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THE BOOK OF GENESIS ILLUSTRATED

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

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