An incisive series of musings that lacks deeper, personal revelations.
A “Christian agnostic” explores the varied manifestations and challenges of fidelity in this collection of personal essays.
Nelson Botzler (If You Are Retiring, You Might Join the Peace Corps!, 2017), who has a Ph.D. in education, worked in multicultural curriculum development in schools and universities in northern California. Her understanding of teacher preparation and education strategies, her experience in the Peace Corps after retirement (the subject of her previous book), and her knowledge of multiple languages and faith traditions inform this broad-minded, intriguing, and introspective work. Described in the preface as a “small book” containing “brief reflections, profiles, and sets of open-ended questions,” it explores in 10 chapters (or “meditations”) the elusive ideal of fidelity, especially to oneself. Readers learn that fidelity affects creativity, compassion, rejuvenation, and especially relationships. In fact, Nelson Botzler devotes two chapters to relationships, which must not only be created, but also nurtured and sustained. Self-care is also important, and the author stresses that this is not an ascetic path but a means to becoming fully human. She mixes portraits of great humanitarians throughout history into her account, and each chapter concludes with bulleted questions asking the reader how to apply these insights in daily life. Though she draws primarily from Christian traditions, the author also borrows from Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish concepts and particularly champions secular humanism as “a common intellectual framework for dialogue among and between diverse groups that is based on critical thinking, civility, and fairmindedness” within a democracy. The book is quite short, as are the profiles of the famous figures she includes. It would have been more effective to tell stories rather than have generic summaries of the lives of Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, et al, who are already widely known. What is particularly lacking is the author’s own journey. She offers generalizations, like “humility also allows me to share my mistakes, to admit the harm I have done—whether intentionally or unintentionally” but declines to provide salient details about these errors or shortcomings. In addition, she never fully relates her struggles to comprehend fidelity. In the end, readers do not have enough information to form a clear picture of Nelson Botzler as an individual.
An incisive series of musings that lacks deeper, personal revelations.Pub Date: June 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-9220-1
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2017
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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