by Stephen Doorlag ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2018
A sometimes-bumpy buddies-on-the-road account of spiritual transformation.
A former hippie recounts his 1970s encounter with an unlikely spiritual teacher in this debut New-Age manifesto.
Doorlag’s account of his spiritual odyssey opens with a disturbing scene. On a beach in southern Vancouver Island, at the end of a long, deeply affecting journey, his friend and mentor died. Following JJ’s explicit wishes, the author burned his body on a bonfire, then smashed his bones to dust and pebbles with a hammer. It is a strange and grisly beginning to what is essentially a gentle story of spiritual guidance. Doorlag met JJ (whose moniker stands for his most basic directive, “Just Jump”) in the summer of 1975, when he accepted the man’s request to ride with him on a road trip from California to Canada. The author was a long-haired, bearded college student driving a “baby-blue van with rainbow curtains.” JJ was at least a decade older and worn down by a life he refused to talk about. But over the course of their month-long adventure, JJ did expound daily on his spiritual outlook, teaching Doorlag to embrace a worldview rooted in New-Age values of peace, love, and justice as attainable ideals. Rejecting established religions for their reliance on the “supernatural,” JJ set forth a belief in four miracles. Three of these, the creation of the universe, the beginning of life, and human consciousness, had already happened. The fourth, “peace on Earth for all mankind,” was to be achieved by practicing open-mindedness, questioning authority, and caring for other people, animals, and Earth. After imparting his philosophy, JJ asked Doorlag to write it down and publish it, a promise that took the author more than four decades to fulfill. Doorlag’s picaresque narrative evokes the innocent revolutionary ethos of the ’70s, which becomes especially poignant when juxtaposed with the continuing struggles of the “Occupy” movement of a more world-weary millennial generation. JJ’s teachings of the miracles of life and creation and hopes for peace and human connection propose a positive and well-intentioned cosmology with intriguing details. But the lessons are sometimes simplistic and contradictory. For example, in discussing JJ’s vision of the future, Doorlag asserts that “medical advances in the centuries to come would be pure speculation” while nonetheless going on to predict “birth defects, paralysis, brain trauma, cancer, etc. may no longer be an issue.”
A sometimes-bumpy buddies-on-the-road account of spiritual transformation.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73220-441-6
Page Count: 74
Publisher: Mountain Mouth Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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