A series of religious reflections by a well-versed author, hampered by opaque prose.
A debut treatise that aims to find new meaning in the biblical Book of Daniel.
Knutson takes readers on a deep dive into a short biblical passage: Daniel 11:20–45. It’s clear that the author is well versed in Scripture, church history, and linguistic critiques of the Bible. Unfortunately, his inelegant prose serves as an impenetrable barrier to reader understanding. His work apparently builds on the history of the Great Disappointment, when Baptist preacher William Miller’s prediction that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844, didn’t materialize. Miller’s prophecy was reworked by his followers, and soon, the Seventh Day Adventist movement was born. As the author explains it, “It would be discovered that Christ had come in the fulfillment of the prophecy, but not to the earth as expected. He had come to the Day of Atonement, Investigative Judgemnt [sic] phase of the parable of the heavenly sanctuary.” A strong knowledge of Millerite/Adventist theology might give a reader a bit more clarity, but for lay readers, Knudson’s conclusions are far too vague. Aside from a confusing, two-paragraph foreword, the author provides no explanation of the intent of his work. Some sentences are nonsensical, such as, “An inner and outer man manifestation since the incarnation the estate referred to also has both realities.” In other cases, the author’s use of metaphors is simply mysterious: “In the meat of the apple, or walnut meat, being analogy, between the core of stiffer substance of faith and the skin which also confessed faith in God, or walnut nut [sic] meat, under the hard outer shell of faith—Lucifer unexplainably chose to breakfaith [sic] in God.” Also, his intolerance of Catholicism, which he refers to in such terms as “the religio-politico vile person system of Roman Catholicism,” may put off many readers. Throughout, Knutson uses the Book of Daniel to refer to various eras in church history, displaying a definitive depth of knowledge in that area.
A series of religious reflections by a well-versed author, hampered by opaque prose.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5245-8213-5
Page Count: 408
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2019
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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