Novelist and spiritual self-abuser Shainberg (Memories of Amnesia, 1988, etc.) emits a long, piercing whine on the subject of his experiences with zazen, or sitting meditation. Early on the memoir has a certain stuttering momentum, as Shainberg describes growing up in postwar Memphis and enduring his father's intensive dinner-table monologues about psychoanalysis and Zen. The intrepid father and son traveled across the country to hear lectures by Krishnamurti and Alan Watts long before Eastern spirituality became fashionable in middle America. Shainberg fils was mostly concerned with his performance on the basketball and tennis courts, which suffered from his adolescent attempts to parse Zen paradoxes about desire, effort, and perfection and incorporate this wisdom into his play. The author had less time for sports as he grew older, owing to the consuming demands of his rampant self- absorption. As near as can be gleaned from this memoir, Shainberg has devoted his entire adult life to a failed attempt to understand Zen practice. Except for a few passing references to his writing and some oblique consideration of his marriage as a meditation competition, the author presents himself as having spent the past few decades sitting on a succession of cushions and approaching, but easily escaping, lasting enlightenment. Interspersed throughout are exchanges of dialogue with Shainberg's Zen master Kyudo Roshi, whose gleeful riddles in pidgin English are reproduced fondly but often inscrutably. The memoir's narrative line is how Shainberg's ego, like the occasional bout of flatulence he describes during group zazen, always bobs up and disrupts any spiritual progress he might be making. By the time Shainberg affiliates himself with a spendthrift Zen quack late in the book, readers may wonder whether he's serious about his spiritual quest or whether he just gets off on the company of eccentrics.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44116-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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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