Philosopher and ecologist Abram writes an absorbing, challenging treatise on the power of written language to separate human beings from their experiential relationship to the nonhuman environment, permitting, in the process, the abuse of nature. Abram contrasts the sensuous relationship between oral indigenous peoples and their surroundings with the physical detachment inherent in an alphabet-based culture such as ours. Oral cultures relate by necessity to the earth and sky, transmitting knowledge through stories that can be adapted to changing circumstances, always attending to the ``language'' of the biotica and inanimate objects. Written language, conversely, demands participation of eyes and ears only, rather than of all the senses, and has become a ``wholly self-reflexive mode of animism.'' While pictographs and ideographs were written language, they retained visual participation with the natural world; the alphabet's legacy has been to isolate humans from their natural origins. Abram discusses how the ancient Hebrew alphabet—which excludes vowel sounds, he speculates, out of a respect for their essence as ``sounded breath,'' a ``reverence for the air''—was coopted by the Greeks, who obliterated its pictographic quality and added vowels, which eradicated the ``interactive, synaesthetic participation'' of the reader and ``effectively desacralized the breath and the air.'' In other parts of this work, Abram presents more contemporary examples of oral indigenous cultures, including the Australian aborigine and the Apache of the American Southwest, who existed by participating in the language of their particular landscapes and who, once forced from these places, lost the basis for coherence in their cultures. It is only through greater responsiveness to their surroundings on this local scale, Abram maintains, that people can effectively address the pressing needs of the planet. Despite a few philosophically dense passages, Abram delivers an original and convincing premise for our dissociation from the natural world.
Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-43819-X
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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