A thoughtful celebration of Hinduism as a potentially unifying force.
An Indian diplomat examines his deeply held spiritual beliefs.
Tharoor (Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, 2018, etc.), former Under-Secretary-General at the U.N., eloquently explains the religion that has offered him wisdom and spiritual consolation throughout his life. Clearly presenting Hinduism’s roots, central tenets, and major texts and thinkers, he portrays the religion as a polycentric faith, open to all seekers of spiritual enlightenment. He is dismayed, however, by what he sees as the corruption of Hinduism into “the intolerant and often violent forms of Hindutva,” a political movement that aims at “creating social and cultural distinctions for a political purpose.” Hindutva sees Hinduism “as a badge of identity, rather than as a set of values, principles and beliefs.” An insidious form of identity politics, according to Tharoor, Hindutva foments prejudice against India’s Muslims and Christians and insists on Hinduism “as a badge of allegiance rather than a way of relating to the cosmos.” For the author, it is precisely Hinduism’s capacious validation of other faiths and its rejection of one “single structure of theological authority or liturgical power” that makes the religion so attractive. Tharoor confronts directly the social and cultural practices that have been associated with Hinduism: the discriminatory caste system, which he admits is unfortunately widespread in India; superstitious beliefs in astrology, signs, and soothsayers; and the “God Market” that has drawn the gullible to “charlatans, poseurs and tricksters” who offer “simplistic ideas of spirituality and amass huge fortunes.” The author believes that although caste was entrenched by British colonial rule, even after India’s independence it has become an indisputable fact of life, practiced by more than a third of the population. While he was raised to be oblivious to caste, he recognizes that he has benefited socially, economically, and politically by having been born into an upper stratum. “Caste blindness,” he admits, “is itself an affectation available only to the privileged.”
A thoughtful celebration of Hinduism as a potentially unifying force.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947534-56-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribe
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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