Intellectual fare to complement the healthy pursuit of erotic transcendence.
Essays on the desirability of excess in life and in art.
Rothfeld, a philosopher, essayist, and nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post, reflects on how film, novels, and other art forms, as well as moral endeavors such as sexual consent, decluttering, and mindfulness (“the decluttered mind”), constrain desire. Of particular concern is the singular quest for economic and political equality. Justice is only the start of a journey “into the more exciting territory of want, glut, and extravagance.” As the author writes, “Where justice seeks proportion…the erotic seeks abundance.” Rothfeld argues that the “fragment novel” (one example is Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation), “which is divested of all extravagance, is therefore an artwork from which the art has been removed, a body drained of all its blood and carnality.” A similar argument is made with the risk-free novels of Sally Rooney, which simulate normalcy and wallow in “claustrophobic romantic entanglements.” In her strongest essay, Rothfeld questions the viability of sexual consent and the resilience of patriarchal norms of femininity, while lamenting its blindness to the erotic and the shock of sensuality. Comedies of re-marriage—e.g., the “1940 masterwork of romantic comedy,” His Girl Friday—lead the author to the possibility of endless talk. Love requires “faith in the inexhaustibility of another person.” Among other themes that Rothfeld investigates are the excess in filmmaker Éric Rohmer’s cycle Six Moral Tales; the way women wait for men (to love is to live “in a state of painful expectation”), as Penelope did in the Odyssey; and eating as a metaphor for fully absorbing the sensual world. Rothfeld’s essays are themselves excessive, with layers of fertile ideas and sharp observations at times obscuring her central thread. The writing is crisp, reflecting a curious mind and a yearning body.
Intellectual fare to complement the healthy pursuit of erotic transcendence.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250849915
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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