Two spiritual travelers set out to uncover one of the greatest mysteries of all time and discover as much about the meaning of life as they do about themselves.
Trying to uncover a deeper meaning in religious texts such as “The Ten Commandments” has led many scholars on an adventure of the soul and mind; after meeting at Paris’ Sorbonne University more than 30 years ago, authors Seraya and Haldane (Angel Signs, 2002) undertook such a quest. In their new book, they use their vast collective expertise to craft a story tracing a linear thread from “The Ten Commandments” across all belief systems, science and metaphysics. The authors are the main characters in the book, along with their guide, a seraph angel named Yeliyael, and a friend of theirs. By sojourning through history and to other galaxies via space-time travel, their adventure leads them to a plateau of greater understanding of humankind. As real-life experts in fields such as philosophy, religion, metaphysics, linguistics and many historical and ancient texts, the authors have a vast reservoir of knowledge from which to create this story. The tale begins as the authors summon the angel to help traverse history, time and space to visit historical sages to guide them on the path of discovery. Meeting up with great philosophical minds such as Moses, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Benjamin Franklin and many others, they receive guidance to decipher the true nature and meaning of “The Ten Commandments,” uncovering a complex series of coded messages in the text that could change the meaning of life as we understand it. In spite of the complex, heady nature of this tome, it makes for a smooth read. Although the basis of the authors’ overarching theories is scholarly in nature, the writing is accessible. Great care is taken to explain certain motifs and topics early on in the story so the reader may follow along easily later. Using their philosophies to uncover plot points is an ingenious method of storytelling, and the tone of the story is always at an even keel. Even when several major revelations are uncovered, the writers' reverence for the subject matter and their historical characters is always managed with great care. Equal parts Dan Brown and Quantum Leap; an arresting, fun read, even for those with no deeper interest in religion.
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983710202
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Manakael MasterWorks
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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