An often engaging narrative, combined with a self-improvement seminar.
An extended parable about finding the right frame of mind for all kinds of success.
Hamblin’s debut novel opens in 2016 as environmental geologist Roger Hunt drives from Nevada to Idaho on business. He’s stressing out about his schedule, worried that he’s running out of time, daylight, and, most crucially, gas. At the last minute, he encounters an enigmatic old man on a dilapidated ranch who has fuel to spare. He doesn’t recognize him at first, but the short-tempered senior, Billy Haynes, soon curtly reminds him that they first met 10 years before on a mountain in Alaska. Hunt is now the CEO of his own small company, but he’s in a precarious personal state. He’s been a recovering gambling addict for years, and at 57, he feels like he’s been neglecting his family and worries constantly that he might lapse into his old ways. Now he must deal with Billy, who confronts him with hard questions: “Are you the success you wanted to be?” the old man asks. “Are you as happy as you could be? Are you the man you wanted to be, Hunt?” After they separate, Hunt finds a manuscript that Billy left behind: “The Seven Transcending Mind-Sets of Success.” As Hamblin’s narrative unfolds, it elaborates on Billy’s philosophy of life and success, which is essentially grounded in the Christian assumption that visible, mortal, earthly life is just the beginning of an eternal existence. Along the way, the author clearly explains principles of developing “Positive Mental Attitude” and resisting negative mindsets in all their forms. The framing of these life lessons as a manuscript left by a mysterious teacher figure is a canny choice on Hamblin’s part, an innovation that allows him to disseminate self-help nostrums in an energetic and entertaining way. That said, the advice is fairly standard stuff, and the melding of narrative and philosophy feels awkward at times; readers who dislike one of these aspects will be impatient for more of the other.
An often engaging narrative, combined with a self-improvement seminar.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5320-3799-3
Page Count: 158
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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