Despite an admirable attention to philosophically important themes, this treatise is disappointingly uncritical for a...
A spirited call for the restoration of dignity surrendered to irrational superstition.
In this brief book, first-time author Nils seeks to revive an apparently battered sense of human dignity and its core features: autonomy, freedom, and rationality. However, he also emphasizes the emotional component of human nature as well as its vulnerability to pernicious influence, because human beings are, he says, “indiscriminately susceptible creatures.” Blinkered fanaticism and irrational illusion are the primary obstacles to the realization of this understanding of dignity, namely the ignorance Nils attributes to religion in general, the Catholic Church in particular. He also reserves considerable scorn for governmental incompetence, discussing religion and government as the twinned obstacles to human decency. The book’s primary complaint against government is that it robs its citizens of their independence, though precisely how is never made adequately clear. Religion itself is simply dismissed as fantastical mythology. “How do you tell a child who deeply believes in Christmas that Santa Claus does not come from the North Pole but all from the sheer imagination of his parents? Likewise, how do you tell a Christian that much of what he or she has learned is not necessarily that relevant and is sadly futile information?” Nils covers an array of topics including multiculturalism and identity, big business, homosexuality, and the nature of human consciousness, though it’s hard to locate an abiding theme along this meandering tour of ideas other than the aforementioned hostility to religious belief. Over the course of the book, references to famous philosophical figures abound, but none are subjected to rigorous analysis. Also, the prose is turgid and clunky, making a relatively short volume a surprisingly long read: “People willingly maintain the integrity of their ethnic belongingness, but just as they can stick through thick they do not hesitate to migrate elsewhere for opportunities if the local environment wears thin.” The author considers his study “existentialistic,” but it is never clear what precisely he means. Nils should certainly be credited for his grand intellectual ambitions as well as the obvious passion he has for the subject. However, his persuasiveness is undermined by reflexive dogmatism and the book’s disorganization.
Despite an admirable attention to philosophically important themes, this treatise is disappointingly uncritical for a defense of reason.Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4701-5354-0
Page Count: 126
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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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