A sweet call for the unsullied love of children that frequently derails under the weight of dubious argument.
Forget Iran and North Korea. The locus of evil is the institution of the family, says poet Stannard, who died in 2004.
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad,” wrote the poet Philip Larkin. Stannard heartily agrees: The dominant-submissive arrangement crushes children, preempting their need for security and affection and stifling their healthy anger, punctuating their days with episodes of verbal and physical abuse. Children become little engines of hate, says the author (though hate can also have positive value, expressing indignation and a sense of self-love). As a child, the author suffered sexual abuse and was the constant victim of her mother’s cruel scorn. The author’s expressiveness testifies to an inner voice, a self-helper, bringing an awareness of suppressed grief and forgotten wounds. She tenders an unrestrained critique of the Bible as a how-to guide for vindictiveness and violence, a reflection of “a corrupt and brutal mankind,” with its God “the biggest hater of them all.” She also calls out Sigmund Freud for back-pedaling when he abandoned sexual trauma as the source of hysteria. Eventually, her broad generalizations detract from her message: Yes, the family can be an abomination, and yes, it’s certainly plausible that hate is often the manifestation of a hurt, frightened child. It doesn’t necessarily follow, however, that “happy families are largely a mirage,” treating children as “inferior species” and “losers.” The author is also prone to such ridiculous statements as, “that the great Gandhi mistreated his children only proves that parents don’t know how to bring up children.”
A sweet call for the unsullied love of children that frequently derails under the weight of dubious argument.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 20.00
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With poetic prose and vivid watercolors, Yang has created a rich portrait of life in China during the 1930s and '40s. Yang chronicles her Baba's (or Daddy's) boyhood and adolescence in 20 tales, each preceded by a watercolor. Baba was the fourth son in the eighth generation of the wealthy House of Yang, and his landscape teems with physical and spiritual dangers. He's threatened by torrential rains, ravenous wolves, red-bearded bandits, famines, demons, Japanese bombs, Russian troops, Communists, Nationalists, even an arranged marriage. When Baba is six, his family is forced out of their Manchurian homeland after the Japanese invasion. They move to China proper, then return five years later when Baba's father loses his job with a mining company. They live under the protective patronage of the family Patriarch until a bloody tug-of-war between followers of Mao and Chiang Kai- shek rends the family and country apart. Ancient legends, political upheavals, and religious ceremonies define Baba's youth. Storytellers teach him about gods and demons, prodigal sons, and the ghosts of the improperly buried. Their wisdom then plays out in his own life as Baba witnesses the goddess of Mercy protect his mother from marauding invaders; the troubled ways of one of his older brothers; and a 49-day funeral ceremony ensuring his great- great-grandfather safe passage to Heaven. Yang's prose feels ancient and foreign; for instance, she describes the effects of the first Japanese bombs: ``The glass windowpanes inhaled and exhaled, but the paper panes heaved a sigh and suddenly gave way, cracking like white porcelain.'' The tension between ancient rituals and modern reality elevates these tales from the merely beautiful into an astonishing personal vision, and a unique portrait emerges of a culture straddling thousands of years. Yang's work is like a lovely painted scroll swimming with wild souls, beasts, birds, flowers, day and night sky, tragedy, and hope.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-100063-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A welcome pinprick in the bloated hot air balloon of management advice–should accompany The 8th Habit or Raving Fans in the...
A necessary icy dash of pessimism in the warm sea of feckless optimism that is the business management genre.
Like Machiavelli's The Prince or Swift's Gulliver's Travels, this parody of "Business Inspiration" contains more verisimilitude on one page than does an entire library penned by Steven Covey. Remaining a shadowy figure throughout, Kersten looks out from the author photo–rendered as a Wall Street Journal pen-and-ink portrait–with a heavenward gaze that rivals that of Ralph Reed seeking divine guidance. Credit him with the ability to couch the actual facts of most business organizations in jargon that even a Ph.D. would understand. Kersten’s essential point is that most businesses, seduced by the pernicious myth of the "Noble Employee," waste precious time and ungodly sums of money attempting to transform mediocre wage slaves into superstars. This is wrongthink, he avers. Not only can you not teach a pig to sing, but in so attempting, you sacrifice a lot of bacon. Passive, dependent, unmotivated employees are easier to exploit and require relatively low maintenance. Accordingly, managers who spoil employees by boosting their self-esteem are only contributing to employee narcissism. Employees must be put squarely in their place–in Kersten’s world, this falls somewhere between medieval serfdom and indentured servitude. Radically demotivating employees includes such techniques as creative amnesia–"forgetting" employees’ names and contributions; also, managers should respond impersonally to employees, refraining from sharing or engaging in eye contact or emotional displays. Kersten even advocates physical "cleansing" after employee contact–make sure to apply antibacterial liquid after an employee handshake.
A welcome pinprick in the bloated hot air balloon of management advice–should accompany The 8th Habit or Raving Fans in the same manner that The Wealth of Nations should accompany Das Kapital.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 1-892503-40-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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