An admirable and vigorous but flawed philosophical argument.
This third installment of a philosophical treatise asserts the theory that humankind can only advance by radically altering its approach to sexual behavior.
“I wish I could provide a concise overview of the problem that we face,” writes Whickwithy in this work’s early pages. “It took me a lifetime and four books to understand and convey” the issue “clearly enough.” As in his two previous volumes, the author addresses the belief that the “horrible traits of mankind” stem from its “forced blindness regarding sex.” Whickwithy identifies a brutishness in the human species that “need not exist” and can be overcome by attaining “sentient sexual intercourse.” The author goes on to underline that “a lot of men” are “lousy at sex,” indulging in base “rutting” that leads only to violent frustration. Whickwithy places the onus on men to learn how to sexually satisfy their lovers and thus become more sentient and in turn more human. The author ruminates on how, over the ages, humans have “perverted the concept of love” and aims to redress the issue by outlining how sex should be approached. In this latest offering, Whickwithy delivers the same argument found in the author’s previous works. Peculiar sexual advice offered in Sentience (2017), such as “Don’t twerk until the lady sings,” is repeated on a number of occasions in this volume. Disappointingly, Whickwithy’s proposal has not evolved, as it continues to perceive heterosexuality as the default mode of sexual orientation. The author goes so far as to imply that gay sexuality has become “popular” because men cannot satisfy women: “Some folks want to physically satisfy their partner and enjoy that loving engagement and heterosexual sex doesn’t offer them that option.” The author’s writing style is energetically assertive: “Women don’t see any point in speculation and men are scared shitless that their ‘secret’ will be discovered. There is an answer, dammit. Get on with it!” As in the previous installments, the author does not draw on specific scientific evidence to support the book’s argument, which renders it mere conjecture. Whickwithy’s hopes of rectifying the ills of humankind are sincere and quite commendable. But the author’s approach is sometimes repetitious and shortsighted.
An admirable and vigorous but flawed philosophical argument.Pub Date: April 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73482-210-6
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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