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MEETINGS WITH THE ARCHANGEL

Name: MEETINGS WITH THE ARCHANGEL
Author: Stephen Mitchell
ISBN: 0-06-018245-8

by Stephen Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 1998

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If The Razor’s Edge had starred Zero Mostel instead of Tyrone Power, this book might never have been written. And that would be a pity. Well-known translator Mitchell (The Book of Job, etc.) has given us a first novel in the form of an autobiography. And not just any autobiography, mind you, but a spiritual autobiography in the style of G.I. Gurdjieff’s Meetings With Remarkable Men, mixing anecdote with advice, and tossing some poems into the soup of philosophy. Stephen, our narrator, is a Jewish college professor whose disgust with the present-day cult of angels inspired him to publish a best-selling diatribe—Against Angels—attacking that obsession as delusional and puerile. Imagine his surprise, then, when confronted with an apparition of the Archangel Gabriel, who has come to set him straight. After engaging Stephen in an elaborate consideration of God, his angels, and the nature of human life, Gabriel settles back to listen to Stephen’s side of things. Stephen, hardly an atheist, has actually spent most of his life wrestling with religion and philosophy—among the Hasidim of Brooklyn, the Zen Buddhists, and the more mundane graduate students of Harvard, Columbia, and Berkeley—and the better part of the story is his. A husband and father, Stephen wants to understand God in relational terms, and Gabriel makes it clear that this is possible. But only up to a point: “You can’t see God’s face without dying. Are you ready to die?” Much of the story is a debate rather than a narrative, and sometimes it bogs down in the mire through which all such disputations must drive (“One of our most exciting games is standing on the edge of a truth, just before it touches its opposite, and gazing down into the abyss between them”). For the most part, though, this is a pretty good (if giddy) ride. Insanely quirky, but good-natured, unpretentious, and (at times) genuinely enlightening. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 1998

ISBN: 0-06-018245-8

Page Count: 256

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
JOSEPH AND THE WAY OF FORGIVENESS
by Stephen Mitchell

- BOOK REVIEW
BHAGAVAD GITA
translated by Stephen Mitchell

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FROG PRINCE
by Stephen Mitchell

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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- SEEN & HEARD
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- SEEN & HEARD
NYT Readers Voting on Best Book of Past 125 Years

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.