Ingeniously executed: a Tao for our times.
A writer reinterprets the Tao Te Ching in this timely study.
Kazden’s writing is intent on examining the peripheries of illusion and reality. His novel Gita (2018) drew on Eastern and Western philosophies to excavate concepts of truth and time. In his latest work, the author turns his attention to the Chinese spiritual text the Tao Te Ching. Diverging from his customary role as a novelist, Kazden reinterprets the classic using his own agenda. “This ‘interpretation,’ it is not a translation,” he underlines in his preface, it “is focused primarily on the congruence between my conceptions of totIs reality and the Tao Te Ching’s conceptions of the Tao.” TotIs reality is a term found often in the author’s work and can be defined as the one “true” reality that lies beyond the veil of illusion. Kazden’s stimulating interpretation honors the Tao’s original form, presenting 81 short stanzas that signpost a way to navigating life with integrity. But it is immediately discernible that the author’s approach has a contemporary edge, reflecting and informing the spiritual and moral crises of the current age. Kazden’s trademark as a writer is his ability to express complex ideas with clarity and succinctness. This talent proves particularly effective when interpreting the Tao. The author skillfully echoes the poetically laconic writing style found in the original text: “The Tao shows, that the highest renown, / Cares not for renown, / The desire for glory, and riches, / Are not the source of wealth, and happiness.” Kazden maintains the careful balance of resolved contradictions and declarative statements central to the Tao. It is a delight to discover specific anomalies in the author’s reinterpretation. For instance, in Darrell D. Lau’s scholarly translation of the text, the closing lines of stanza 18 read: “When the state is benighted / There are loyal ministers.” Kazden’s take on this evokes recent political affairs: “And when the country is in chaos and confusion / The perfidious patriots will appear.” In such instances, some purists may criticize the author for interpreting the Tao too loosely. Others will find his thoughtful version genuinely refreshing, no more so than when they discover that the sage depicted is now a woman: “Such a sage comes to love the world as she loves herself.”
Ingeniously executed: a Tao for our times.Pub Date: March 5, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-71-578203-8
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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