An inspiration for those in need of words to carry on with life.
The noted academic and former politician examines the nature of consolation as a means of helping us accept the tragic reality of our lives.
“Consolation is what we do, or try to do, when we share each other’s suffering or seek to bear our own,” writes Ignatieff. “What we are searching for is how to go on, how to keep going, how to recover the belief that life is worth living.” The author is generous in providing cases in point. Foremost is Job, the biblical figure whom God tested with exquisitely awful punishments. The great lesson of Job, Ignatieff suggests, is not that he eventually bows to his tormentors, but that he teaches us to “refuse the false consolations of those who deny what we have endured.” The author then turns to the Psalms, which “have enabled men and women in pain, throughout the ages, to grasp the commonality of their experience.” Both Job and the Psalms, he adds, give us the language to express our hurt. Cicero may not have been the greatest model of probity, but the Roman philosopher adds to that literature, as does Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, whom Ignatieff credits with setting a noble example: “For it is consoling to know that not even an emperor can get through the night, alone with his thoughts. That is something we can share with him.” Montaigne turned to his thoughts, alone in his tower, in the face of a terrible religious civil war that had lasted for 30 years. Having witnessed the peasants in the countryside around him prepare for their plague-borne deaths by digging their own graves and awaiting the end, he found consolation for his impending demise. Marx and Lincoln also figure in these pages, as does Cicely Saunders, the founder of the hospice movement. Ignatieff concludes that consolation is a species of grace, which makes the consoler an angel in disguise.
An inspiration for those in need of words to carry on with life.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8050-5521-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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