literature Books

Excellent collection of reviews and articles by one of the greatest social critics America has produced.

I fell in love with Miss King's writings years ago when I read "Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady," her memoir of growing up in Washington, DC with somewhat(!) eccentric parents, grandmother, and assorted friends and neighbors. Finding "Deja Reviews" and rereading her memoir brought me a long weekend of totally pleasurable reading.

Her reviews make me want to read almost everything she read - so many books, so little time... She is funny, her observations are trenchant, and she does not suffer fools gladly.

What I want to know is where is she now? I sorely miss her.

One of the oddest fallouts fro the past eight years under Bush is finding the campfire that attracts the learned and wise is of mixed ideology. Where once national debates were between best and the brightest of liberals and conservatives, debates have been replaced by the shimmering that passes for combat on American Idol and the winner is the one who best bolsters an audiences' self-esteem, leaving those who once led the nation to higher levels of greatness huddled alone by a relatively small light in the dark.

Miss Florence King is a conservative voice of the most conservative kind and after enjoying her arch and historically solid opinion, deeply rooted in culture and criticism, this liberal knows that our country will not be healed until the likes of her again form the opposition.

I discovered Florence King while taking a history class at her undergrad Alma Mater - American University in Washington D.C. - where one of her books, Southern Ladies and Gentleman was used as a primer of sorts for class covering the South since Reconstruction. I became a real fan of her writing and writing style, which is possibly the best in American publishing not only of our time, but of all time.

While her only fiction book was a let down, King excels as an essayist, critic and commentator of American life, politics and social comment. Her writing style is something that every person who takes pen to paper believes (mistakenly) that they are using - its concise wording gets to the point and almost jabs you in the eye with its simplicity and ability to convey her thoughts while changing your mind. Think of King as the ultimate guest at your dinner party of dreams, polite, but ready to snip any loose threads of conversation off lest they dangle in the air and cloud her view.

While I am loath to bring this name up, I will say that I believe Ann Coulter probably thinks that she is a writer on par with Ms. King. She is not. I do bring her name up for one reason: Coulter represents the opposite end of the spectrum on which King "write-fully" (bad pun intended) sits, making King the Grand Dame of true Conservative commentary and writing.

In reading King, park your political beliefs at the door and luxuriate in her keen eye for word usage, grammar and thought. If you are so foolish as to approach her writing with any preconceived notions as to your own beliefs, she will skewer you just as the dim wit that you you know you are not. King is not the type of person to suffer fools wisely.

If our national culture were really based upon the high lofty ideals that we think that it is, King would be a regular on Sunday morning political shows, putting their hosts in their place. But alas, America and Americans are a vapid lot, and thus we get what we deserve: Ann Coulter distracting us from her unfounded and outrageous opinions by wearing a little black dress like a hooker on her way home from a Saturday night job.

But we have King in print. While she doesn't enjoy the book sales that Coulter does, Kings works will bear the test of time and one day she will receive the type of honors due her as a real American treasure that she is.

I've long described Florence King as my favorite living writer (my favorite writer, period, is Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, who -- probably not coincidentally -- also wrote for "National Review" for many years). Yet I have avoided reviewing her books here, not only for fear of not doing them justice, but also because so much of how I try to review books has come from reading Florence King's own reviews. At what point is the pupil ready to grade the master?

Reviews are an art at which Miss King excels, which is why I was so happy to discover an advertisement for "Deja Reviews" a few months ago. This volume is a wonderful companion to "STET, Damnit!," the collection of her "Misanthrope's Corner" columns NR published a couple of years ago. "Deja Reviews" assembles about five-dozen pieces from NR and "The American Spectator." Most of them are reviews, but there are also a number of non-review essays including some NR pieces that weren't in the "Misanthrope's Corner."

Miss King is sharp of eye, wit, and pen. She famously has no patience with idiocy, and best of all possesses a wonderful facility with the language. I was about to call it a "gift," but I imagine she might object, rightly, to that word: she has worked hard over many years to hone her skills. It's not a "gift," but the product of time, energy, and mental commitment. I remember her writing once in the "Misanthrope's Corner" that she turned down invitations to go on television to discuss one or another of her columns. "If I had anything more to say, I'd have put it in the piece." I so admire Miss King not only for what she writes, but also for the effort she puts into her writing.

Her effort and skill make for a great reading experience. You don't have to be familiar with the books she's reviewing to enjoy what she's written about them. These essays are up to her usual high standards for style, humor, and dead-eye insight. As with her earlier collection, there's no index in this book, but that just means I'll once again be filling the flyleaves with my own notations. I imagine I'll learn a lot more about the art of book reviewing, and have a wonderful, entertaining time doing it.

Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature charts the course of Jewish American literature as it meanders between several poles: assimilation and tribalism, universalism and particularism, exilic uprootedness and national at-homeness,
private experience and collective identity. It offers a broad view that stretches from the late nineteenth century to the present and encompasses all major literary genres. And what it achieves in scope is not at the expense of depth: the study zooms in on four writers who represent different positions on the Jewish American ideological spectrum and whose works it analyzes with meticulous care.
Omer-Sherman is at his best when he unpacks the complex, often agonized tensions that subtend each writer's construction of Jewish American identity. He shows how Emma Lazarus, the first major Jewish poet in the United States,was torn between her belief in universalism and her proto-Zionist program,between her desire to assimilate and her pained recognition of her marginality.He discusses how decades later, against the backdrop of the Holocaust,essayist and poet Marie Syrkin expressed a firmer commitment to Zionism,insisting on the ``weakness'' of the diasporic Jew and regarding Israel as the inevitable telos of Jewish progression from collective tragedy to collective
redemption. And yet, particularly in her later years, Syrkin was forced to confrontthe failure of this Utopian vision as Israel moved away from the principles of socialist Zionism to which she so tenaciously clung. Wedded to Syrkin but not to her Zionist ideology, poet and playwright Charles Reznikoff is shown to have proposed an alternative vision to his Jewish audience. Against the grain of what he regarded as the coercive narrative of Zionism, Reznikoff celebrated the extraterritorial and hybridic character of the Jewish experience,and the anti-utopian, pluralist potential embedded in its culture. Finally,
Omer-Sherman turns to Philip Roth, to show how his novels playfully (yet painfully)deconstruct both Syrkin's Zionism and Reznikoff's ``diasporism.'' Roth repeatedly questions the ethical validity of Zionist ``zealotry'' but also expresses skepticism about the possibility of a vital Jewish diaspora in the United States, given the complacency that governs its existence.

The subject of this book-the relationship between diasporic and Zionist tendencies in Jewish American writers-has been waiting to be addressed by an able critic. No one has attempted anything near the scope of Omer-Sherman's book. An ambitious and wide-ranging work of scholarship, [it is] well-informed by contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary in the best sense of the term. It will interest anyone concerned with the development of American Jewish literature, history, and identity in the twentieth century.-Dr. Norman Finkelstein, Xavier University, Cincinnati

Ranen Omer-Sherman is one of our most perceptive literary critics. The book is a slow read but that's because its ideas take time for the examiner to work out. The book teaches us a lot about cultural theory, as well as about literary criticism. We are able to appreciate how the background of the Jewish Diaspora and Zionism contribute to similar themes in the work of writers as diverse as Emma Lazarus, Marie Syrkin, Charles Reznikoff, and Philip Roth. Dichotomies in the literature of these writers become multi-layered when viewed from Omer-Sherman's broad perspective. For example, the chapter titled, "'No Coherence': Philip Roth's Lamentations for Diaspora," illuminates many relational dynamics between the novelist and his forebears, between questions raised about Roth's characters and what Omer-Sherman terms "Jewish assimilation and amnesia." With skill Professor Omer-Sherman connects to the literary imagination such events as the Shoah and the birth of Israel, the problem of identity in Israel and the Jewish world as a whole. It is a terrific read.

The subject of this book-the relationship between diasporic and Zionist tendencies in Jewish American writers-has been waiting to be addressed by an able critic. No one has attempted anything near the scope of Omer-Sherman's book. An ambitious and wide-ranging work of scholarship, [it is] well-informed by contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary in the best sense of the term. It will interest anyone concerned with the development of American Jewish literature, history, and identity in the twentieth century.-Dr. Norman Finkelstein

Omer-Sherman's study is the first to track the impact of Zionism upon the development of Jewish American literature. Where earlier scholars have written about the American Jewish experience by probing the tensions existing between tradition and assimilation, Omer-Sherman shifts the terms of the argument: he demonstrates that an investigation of American Jewish negotiations with Zionism tells us something new about the self-fashioning of a culture. Most strikingly, by mapping the identity struggles of American Jews onto the dichotomy Zionism/Diaspora, Omer-Sherman is able to analyze, in great and telling detail, how representative writers have carved out a Jewish `homeland' in America.-Stephen Fredman, author of A Menorah for Athena

If you love the pioneering work on mythology done by Edith Hamilton, then this book is a necessary companion for you. Although she always covered the figures and places fairly well, obviously it becomes simpler when you have a dictionary beside you as an extra source (and at times the one and only) pointing us all in the right direction. If Greek and Roman mythology have ever stumped you beyond what you thought was repair, I promise that this book has the potential to clear that obscurity up. And look at the used price, you can actually AFFORD it, too! YAY! So if you want to better understand Hamilton, or even Joe Campbell, purchase this buddy. It's well worth the investment! Enjoy!

Whenever I want to know about anyone from Greek or Roman mythology, this is the first book I grab. They're all listed alphabetically & there is a satisfyingly concise description of each. Entries tend to be so short that this book is by no means the only one to read about mythology in, but it's an indispensible place to start.

This is quite possibly the best, inexpensive reference material ever. This is very good. The entries are clear and concise. The names have pronunciation guides and where they are mentioned. It also has entries over the authors who wrote the works. The entries also have cross-references to other entries in the book. The font of the book is clear and there is enough white space to where the words do not seem cluttered. While this may seem not that important, when you are having to look up a character very fast so you can respond to a question, you will be thankful. I have only one problem with this book. Some of the entries on the groups of characters, such as the muses, only reference you to the names of the characters, not what they did together as a group. Even with this, this book is something you can buy and not worry about making a wrong buy.

Its a wonderful mini reference to the Gods and Goddesses of the Greek pantheon.

This book has one thing most (as far as I can tell) classical mythology references don't have: PRONUNCIATION for every entry. It's clear and complete, with even obscure references, and includes main sources.

At any price, this is an excellent resource.

Fun book to share with teenagers. Keeps the 16 year old wanting to know the answer to another question in the book, responding to what is written. Great to keep them interested in our religion!

This sequel to Did Adam and Eve Have Belly Buttons is another great resource to have when answering childrens' and teens' questions about God, Catholic beliefs, etc. I've even learned a few things. Our MOMS Ministry at church has enjoyed the questions and answers. Answers are written to be easy to read and understand.

Great book. Easy reading, informative, something someone could pick up and find a topic they are interested in.

These 2 theologians provide great, in-depth answers to some common, crucial questions about the Catholic faith. This is an awesome book for anyone who wants to learn more about the basics of Catholicism--not just teenagers. Don't purchase this book looking for some kind of faith-manual though. This is not The Purpose Driven Life, and it's not supposed to be. It's factual and interesting, but it is not the type of book that really sets your heart on fire (though enflaming the mind is also an important aim). I would really recommend this book. God bless!

Excellent book for Catholic Youth Programs. Allows Youth Leaders to address issues that are relevent to teenagers and helps teens to feel comfortable discussing questions that are on the minds of other teens. The book helps to open the door for discussions that will help the spiritual growth ot teens.

Jean Harris's territory is the psychology of the couple--its gaps and attractions,
its pains and revelations. Intelligently hermetic, she negotiates souls. Diffidence
is a mélange of air and stone, strength and vulnerability. Powerful and sensitive
at the same time, the novel squeezes destinies in one cup of prosa-forte that you
want to swallow sip by sip thinking of lost love and conquered vanities.

"Diffidence" is a taut, smart and fun novel; a lesson in the psychology of the couple -- the readers interested in the psychology of an artist-in-love, artist-as-mother, artist-as-daughter-of-a-woman-fond-of-machinations, or artist-as-a-lesson in how to reinvent yourself, will find here stuff aplenty.
The protagonists of this beautiful novel linger in your memory long after you put the book down. At a time when so many published novels are thinly veiled bloated stories that lack the respiration of a real novel, it is refreshing to read this one. This is not an enlarged story -- one in which the writer just added layer after layer of verbal and descriptive padding interspersed with psychobabble; this is constructed from the first beam as a novel and you regret when it's over.

Mircea Sandulescu, author of "Escapes and Ashes."

"Diffidence unfolds in one of story-telling's mystery zones, a place where the battle for distance between narrator and her objects is both fierce and oddly stylized. I don't remember when I last read such intelligently constructed writing. Plus, it's erotic and visually beautiful." --Andrei Codrescu

This is a very tightly crafted,emotionaly intense novel, a fascinating mixture of lucidity,sarcasm,irony, self deprecating humor and also compassion, tenderness and unhinged sensuality.Seemingly a free spirit,an artist,Claire Neil-the tormented daughter,mother, former wife and reborn hot lover-is in reality a whirlpool of contradictory sentiments and emotions in quest of moral options. At the end of the book, she overcomes her diffidence, her overly cautious ways, through-what else?-love.Not an easy read(the writing of Jean Harris is dense,apothegmatic,cross-cultural and always intellectually challenging),"Diffidence" becomes a hypnotic lecture, once you enter its elaborated construction.Jean Harris is a true writer, gifted, sensitive , in great control of her skills.

If you tired of the thriller sex, overblown relationships in fiction, leading only to a killed time and improved sales then try DIFFIDENCE by Jean Harris. It is a real literature with the development of characters, mother-daughter-grandmother-close friends lines, all intimate, tense, painful like in real life. Jean Harris is a master of dialogue and skillful in rendering the emotion of relationship, always leaving something closed, having the reader not to turn pages fast, but to think, try it him/herself. Author's Fire Island landscapes and scenes smell of salt, wet canvas, abandoned piers and subconcsious human isolation, something we are all afraid of and still carry on through our entire lifes. At times Harris' prose moves confidently into the realm of poetic deliverance:

"The act of telling always failed.
It began as a telephone call at night,
a street corner conversation,
impulses dislocated into
wires in the dark"

This novel is a poem you'd like to read slowly, slowly opening layer after layer of the emotional meaning underneath the strata of a real prose style.
Andrew Profer

I read "Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit" when it came out in German in 1983, and loved it. Unfortuntately, it was a borrowed copy, and I kept looking for it among my collection of German books when I often referred it to others.

Now I again had an opportunity to refer to it while reading Patricia Wood's new (and first) novel Lottery, which is also about a very slow person, Perry, who gains respect and friendship after what could have been the devastation of winning the Washington State Lottery. Perry is also a sailor, and Perry, like Franklin, has learned to be an "auditor" and a listmaker, to turn slowness into his strength.

In recent years, polar exploration has regained much attention; particularly so the voyages of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. Relatively little, in comparison, is known about Sir John Franklin, who after several expeditions to the Polar Sea lost his life shortly after having discovered the North West Passage in 1847.

Working from Franklin's own accounts, other historic sources and several scholarly treatises, German author Sten Nadolny in 1983 published an award-winning and (at least in Germany) highly successful novelized biography of Franklin. But "The Discovery of Slowness" (German title: "Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit") is no mere rendition of the facts of Franklin's life, fascinating though they may be. Nadolny sees Franklin as a proponent of the idea of giving to all persons and things their own time; of not being unduly rushed, nor influenced by outside factors over which one has little (if any) control: then and now, an unusual concept in a world growing faster by the day.

Growing up in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, Nadolny's Franklin is a perpetual outsider, seemingly handicapped by his slowness, which renders him defenseless against spiteful attacks and unable to follow anything occurring at an even moderately fast pace, including speech. Early on, John thus turns his desires to the sea, which he perceives as a dark and boundless ally. He tries to run away to a nearby port, but is recaptured and sent to boarding school. There, an enlightened teacher eventually shows interest in him after having discovered that "the student F." (as he entitles a treatise based on his observations) is not simply slow but rather, takes particular care in observing things, and anything once lodged in his brain will be lodged there forever.

To deal with the difference between his own pace and that of the world around him, Franklin adopts a number of varying techniques: A stare enabling him to bypass quick action, memorized phrases to cover the breaks he needs in longer sentences, and a mental sorting system to distinguish issues in need of immediate address from those requiring long-term care. And as he grows older, his behavioral patterns progressively shape his outlook on the world and personal philosophy.

On his teacher's recommendation, Franklin is allowed to board his first ship at age fourteen. A few years later, he joins the Royal Navy and, rising through the ranks, witnesses the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen, the Battle of Trafalgar, and a campaign against American forces before New Orleans, during which he is wounded. Having already participated in the 1801-03 expedition to Australia led by his uncle, renowned navigator Matthew Flinders, Franklin receives his first commission for a voyage to the North as the commander of one of two ships sent to explore the Polar Sea north of Spitzbergen in 1818. However, both ships are damaged by the drifting floes of a large ice field and forced to return home.

Unsatisfied, Franklin requests - and eventually receives - a commission for a second voyage, this time a land expedition; his first attempt to discover the North West Passage. For its sheer gripping storytelling, this 1819-22 trip is one of the highlights of Nadolny's book; particularly the return journey, which confronts Franklin's crew with sorrow, hunger and death, from both starvation and murder. (No recommended bed-time reading if you value a good night's rest.) Yet, having first suffered humiliation due to what the Admiralty considers a "failed" trip, Franklin's no-frills account of the expedition garners him unexpected fame and fortune; and eventually a commission for a further journey to the North, which due to its thoughtful preparation and the extensive cartographic material and observations it yields is considered a success, although it, again, does not result in the discovery of the North West Passage. Franklin is knighted, his fame and fortune grows - but for the moment, no further voyage to the Polar Sea is in sight.

Somewhat reluctantly, he thus accepts the appointment as governor of Van Diemen's Land (which he will rename Tasmania, for its discoverer Abel Tasman); telling himself that a governorship - even of a penal colony - is not substantially different from commanding a ship. Like at sea, Franklin attempts to divide responsibility between himself and his "second(s) in command," taking personal charge of all matters requiring long-term care and leaving the issues requiring fast, immediate attention to his chief subordinates. Here, however, he is not dealing with loyal men who understand his philosophy: His personal secretary Maconochie is a pseudo-reformist radical; colonial secretary Montagu a crony of the local elite without any sympathy for Franklin's reformatory measures, whereas Franklin's efforts to better the fate of the convicts and aborigines reflect the humanistic qualities of a man whose empathy for all human beings and keen interest in science has developed over a lifetime spent in the company of sailors, explorers, American Indians and Inuit, through war and peace, hunger and satisfaction.

Facing opposition from the local ruling class and the politics of royal secretary Lord Stanley, Franklin is finally recalled in 1843. Upon his friends' intervention, he is granted an audience with prime minister Sir Robert Peel, who offers him the newly-created position as royal supervisor of educational affairs; but realizing that Peel merely wants to capitalize on his apparent reluctance to take action, not implement any true reforms, Franklin declines. At last, he is granted another commission for a voyage to discover the North West Passage: his last journey, during which he (and his crew) have to realize that there is one who is more patient than even the most patient of humans - death.

"Thou ... art passing on thine happier voyage now towards no earthly pole," reads part of a poem by Franklin's cousin Tennyson, printed on his Westminster Abbey memorial. Franklin was certainly not the only polar explorer to whom these words could be applied. As Sten Nadolny's book shows, he is as deserving of renewed attention as are his brethren in spirit; and not only because much yet remains unclear about the exact fate of his last expedition.

Also recommended:
Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin
The God of Impertinence
Measuring the World: A Novel (Vintage)
Gould's Book of Fish
Shackleton - The Greatest Survival Story of All Time (3-Disc Collector's Edition)

My encounter with this book was a bit magical. I arrived at a B&B in Vail and one of Mr. Nadolny's other books was on a table in the common area. I asked about it, and the proprietress said Mr. Nadolny had left that morning and had given her the book. I read it, loved it, and sought out his other works.

My favorite review of this book describes it as "a utopia of character." Truly it is. Yes, it's a nice little biography of an interesting life, but it is so much more. Sir John Franklin realized that each individual has his or her own "speed" in perception and action. Throughout his life, he observed himself and others objectively and developed his own "systems" for the most beneficial application of his own uniquely slow processing of impression and responses. He compensated with rigorous planning, precision, and observation - and by appreciating and effectively leading those who were faster.

Why is this interesting? I believe it is so because in our own times, everything moves way too fast for most of us...and those of us who might be naturally slow in the manner of Franklin suffer most from it. If Franklin were a boy today, he would likely be put on Ritalin, or diagnosed with "Sensory Integration Disorder" or some such thing, possibly placed in a "special" class at school...and his uniqueness would be deemed pathological and buried.

Franklin's qualities, and his persistent but self-accepting stuggle with them, made him the best of leaders and a deeply moral man. Rereading this book, I am led to realize that my own "true inner speed" is perhaps as slow as Franklin's, and that much unhappiness comes from not operating at that speed. This is painful - we can complain about our over-stimulated, over-informed, over-hurried times, but that is futile unless one decides to retreat completely to our own Walden.

Franklin found two things paralyzing: self-pity, and what he called "disapproval," meaning disgust with circumstances he could not change. So he resolved to avoid these and concentrated on his "systems." It worked...perhaps some of us can do the same. And if we are parents, we must make sure we understand and respect our children's "inner speed."

In sum, read this book - and do so more than once to absorb the nuances.

I like taking this book out for a long night stroll. Maybe it's lightly raining, of course it's dark with only street lights to light up the words on the page. It moves me through and through Lord! Child! it shorely am good it good it good! it so damn good!

this book is unusually thruthful and gripped me from the beginning to the very end - maybe because of the fact that I have something in common with Franklin. So convincinglty written , I'd like to have met the protagonist !

We Americans tend to forget that Vaclav Havel was an Artist, poet, writer and existentialist thinker long before we seized upon him as our own private "anti-communist hero extraordinaire." And as with most other things, we in the West tended to "fixate" on Havel as just the one-man anti-Communist sideshow: the singleton hero of the Prague Spring. That is to say, we saw in him only what we wanted to see -- only what was comfortable for our myopic vision and only what tended to calm our democratic sensibilities. For had we looked and drank just a bit deeper, there was a lot more of this self-made "artist turned political activist," to see than just our knee-jerk recreation of him through our own eyes as our own larger-than-life anti-Communist hero.

This book offers another vision of him that looks deeper into his very troubled, but nevertheless very important soul. Having had this book on my bookshelf, left unread for almost 20 years, this oversight alone makes me as guilty of seeing only the "shadow Havel as anti-Communist caricature," as the rest.

In this very thoughtful series of autobiographical interviews, the "deeper Vaclav Havel," comes through loudly and clearly. And here I mean of course the one just beyond the popular anti-Communist Western created veneer. Havel has always used his very subtle, supple and artistic mind to become more than just an Anti-Communist firebrand. In the grand tradition of other Europeans, and more than anything else, he is an existentialist humanist thinker, with much practical advice for democrats. However his primary concerns have never been just with the fetishized political games that superpowers play. Whether they be the brutal class-based politics of Communism which, before it committed suicide, had morphed into a softer form of equally fetishized version of socialism; or about the equally brutal racist-based capitalist consumer-driven democracies, which as they begin to see their own self-inflicted deaths just over the horizon, have also morphed into a "kinder and gentler" form of American racism, or what amounts to about the same, Mandela's softer version of South African Apartheid: Either way, none of these has been Havel's primary concern.

In this book we see Havel's real concerns spread out on the table, as he tells us how his keen sensibilities evolved until he learned to reject his own bourgeois class-based Communist upbringing. He learned to reject it because as he puts it "it gave me unearned privileges and alienated me from myself and from the rest of society in ways that could not be undone until I became aware enough to develop a refined sense of fairness, and until I could develop a "social emotion" that was antagonistic towards the class privileges I had inherited." Havel's "social emotion" was one that was also antagonistic towards unjust social barriers, and towards any pre-determined status awarded at birth, or based on the "false consciousness" of race superiority or any other forms of unearned status whose existence is designed specifically to humiliate, dominate and dehumanize others.

Although Vaclav rebellion against his parent's wealth is classic and familiar to us in the U.S., he did not blame them -- as he saw them as decent people merely caught up in and locked into the social customs and way of life of their time, perhaps in the same way that we Americans do when we use the same lament to excuse our own parent's evils of Jim Crow and slavery. Like his American counterparts, Havel too, even as a member of the bourgeois, preferred a sensibility that sided with the oppressed rather than with the ruling class of which, through inheritance, he was a member in "good standing."

However, unlike the typical American or South African racist, who would never grant moral superiority to those they oppress, even though classism was his natural inheritance, Havel opposed his social station at an almost instinctual level because with all of its undeserved advantages it was seen by him as morally inferior to those it oppressed. He also opposed it because of its inherited privileges, the sponging off of the powerless, due to its social injustices and the immoral barriers that tended to degrade man and condemned those it oppressed to the status of sub-humans. Havel said that by the time of the 1968 uprisings, he had become what he called "an emotional" and a "moral socialist." But even this was just a half way house on his journey to greater personal awareness and enlightenment.

As his social consciousness evolved he began to see the crisis of the world as deeper than just particular ways of organizing the economies, their respective peculiar social arrangements, or the politics of a particular system. What he saw long before it became obvious to the rest of us, is that both the East and West are suffering from the same dilemma: a crisis of alienation, a malaise in which man is isolated from himself; a conflict between an impersonal, anonymous, irresponsible, corrupt and uncontrollable juggernaut of power (the power of mega-corporations, mega-technology, and mega-dollars in politics and mega-churchs), and the elemental and original interests of man as a concrete individual.

In this sense, Havel sees this conflict in the same terms that Ernest Becker saw them: as a nostalgic loss of metaphysical certainties, a lack of a capacity to experience the transcendental, of any super-personal moral authority, or any kind of higher moral horizon. As he puts it: "As soon as man begins to consider himself the source of the highest meaning in the world he begins to lose his human dimension, and control of his humanity. We are going through a great departure from God, which has no parallel in history: we have become the first atheistic civilization."

But again, as in the case with Becker, we must resist the temptation to force these comments about God and the need for a return to spiritualism, into our own facile, lifeless and morally compressed Procrustean Beds. His reference to God and an "extramundane authority" is similar to that of Professor Cornel West's version of his own self-styled version of "Chekovian Christianity:" They both represent "Existentialist revolutions" more than they represent traditional rearrangements of existing religious norms of morality. Anyway you cut it, both West and Havel's versions of "God" seek to drive the moneychangers from the Temple.

Havel, Becker and West all put at the foot of our collective dilemma, man's arrogant anthropomorphism, in which he attempts to know and control everything. As we go about, bouncing between obscene consumption on the one hand and novel but obscene repression on the other, these great men all agree that we need to find a deeper sense of responsibility to the world and to something higher than ourselves. We need a new moral order based on returning man to his genuine human dimension, which can eventually lead to new social structures where personal humanity may again begins to rule supreme.

Far be it for me to suggest that these great men and their shared vision may have missed an important point: that man's humanity is not what it used to be. It has changed and been transformed in fundamental, perhaps even in irretrievable, ways. We cannot "walk the cat back" to an earlier more pristine moral time. Moral ground zero has changed, perhaps forever. Like everything else, our humanity too has been corrupted. We can't un-ring that bell; there is no way to back.

Sadly, the new humanity that we have created is what it is, period. There is lots of practical advice for democrats here, but Havel's larger message is, in my view, much more important.

Ten Stars

Edit of 17 Apr 08 to add links.

This book should be read as an adjunct to the author's other major book along these lines on power to the powerless.

The most gripping and troubling conclusion that I drew from this book is that the United States of America is today much closer to where Czechoslovakia was in 1968 than anyone other than the Chomsky's and Vidal's might be willing to admit. We have both a federal government and a national corporate economy that thrives on elitist secrecy and blatant lies--even our non-profit sector is corrupt, from the Red Cross to United Way to many others. The people, the citizen-voters, truly have lost all power, as well as access to the information that might give them back the power, and this is indeed a black, absurdist-realist situation.

On a more positive note, the author offers up, in the course of a long series of interviews, a number of ideas that are relevant to America today, as well as to any other emerging or re-emergent democracies in the making.

1) Model of behavior. When arguing with the center of power, do not get side-tracked with ideological debates over right or wrong. Focus on very specific concrete things (e.g. term limits, campaign finance reform, neighborhood economics) and stick to your guns.

2) Popular coalitions. Non-violent non-partisan popular coalitions are the core means of taking back the power. They represent a means for bring together groups of people from widely divergent backgrounds, with genuine social tolerance.

3) Informal networks. Even under conditions of repression and censorship, informal networks of dissidents and quasi-dissidents can be effective in sharing information through samizdat publications. [With the Internet, these possibilities explode, although caution must be taken on the fringes since the Internet is easily monitored and the more radical leaders could be declared seditionist "combatants" ineligible for their rights as citizens...speaking of the Soviet Union, of course, not America.]

4) Man versus Machine. Havel reaches his own conclusions founded in Czech literature and his own experience, with respect to the urgency of restoring the kinship and human connections that used to drive politics, economics, and other aspects of organized living. He is at one with Lionel Tiger among many others, with respect to the terribly consequences of the industrial era in terms of de-humanizing decision-making and allowing remote elites to treat individual workers as dispensable cogs in the machine, whose lives matter not a whit.

5) Neighborhoods, Politics "From Below". He joins the authors of the Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson) and of IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century (Marianne Williamson) in emphasizing the vital role that neighborhoods must play in any democracy. From political self-governance to sustainable economics to low-cost healthy agriculture to cultural cohesion, neighborhoods are the sin qua non of democracy--without active neighborhoods, one can go so far as to say, national democracy is a sham, a false theater, fully equivalent to the centralized, repressive, inefficient totalitarian control states of earlier eras.

6) Small Numbers Can Make a Difference. I was struck by how few were the original dissidents and organizers--in some cases, 20-30 in number, in others 70-80. Earlier studies have suggested that Hitler took power over millions with just 25,000 people. One can only hope that the anti-thesis is true, and that the 50 million cultural creatives can take back the power by getting serious about organizing across neighborhoods and into a national network.

7) Art and theater matter. Even under conditions of severe censorship and control, art and theater can be the manifestation of uncensored life, "life that spits on all ideology and all that lofty word of babble; a life that intrinsically resist(s) all forms of violence, all interpretations, all directives....here stood truth..."

8) Absurdity is a warning. Nihilistic and absurd theater or other works of art are a caution. They "do not offer us consolation or hope (but) merely remind( ) us of how we are living: without hope.

9) Truth can be misappropriated. The author experienced the misappropriation of his words and was both hurt and enlightened, ultimately creating a play about truth, the circumstances in which it is said, and the whom, why, and how of it.

10) Great men doubt themselves. Most touching are the author's many retrospective and current references to his insecurities, to his doubting himself even as he made history and became President of Czechoslovakia.

11) Writers live to tell the truth. This is certainly not true of most American writers who write for money, but it reflects the ideal and merits thought.

12) Change the atmosphere. If you can do nothing else, strive for a moral mobilization and a change in the atmosphere of governance, at any level. We cannot even begin to conceive the magnitude of the positive changes that can occur overnight if the people begin to speak truth among themselves. Work toward a process "in which people's civic backbones (begin) to straighten again."

13) Role of the intellectual. While I the reviewer would churlishly doubt that America has many intellectuals right now, the author's concluding words on the role of the intellectual strike me as very important: "...the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity."

Any person concerned about the corruption and misdirection of their government and their corporate as well as non-profit entities, will be provoked and inspired by this book. It speaks to the future of human life as it might be, were we willing to stand up straight and be counted at citizen-voters, active at every level beginning with our own neighborhoods.

Living in Truth: 22 Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Other reviews are right on the money in terms of this being a very good book and of course it covers many key elements of the events and times during the changes in Czechoslovakia. However the are several key messages, and lessons for anyone interested in managing, motivating and leading people; particularly through difficult or uncharted changes. There are also some good reflections on the role, character and nature of theater and other individual and group activities in the arts.

This is a fine book about an amazing man. I was truly inspired by Vaclav Havel after reading this book. This book is an "easy read" even though it is largely about weighty matters. It is an interesting and enlightening book.

Whenever I need a moral boost I go back and reread Vaclav Havel's
"Disturbing the Peace". This book is a series of essays by the
dissident Vaclav Havel that were smuggled out of communist
Czechoslovakia and translated by a Havel friend in the West. Vaclav
Havel was a playwright who became a Czech dissident who became leader
of the Velvet revolution (which ousted the communists) and who finally
became president of the republic.

Vaclav Havel was the foremost
dissident under the communist regime. He openly challenged the ruling
government with such essays as "Power to the Powerless" and
"The Soul of Main under Communism". (Actually I forgot the name
of the latter essay. I think "The Soul of Man under Communism"
is an essay written by Oscar Wilde. But Havel did address this theme
in "Disturbing the Peace" and in essays he forwarded to the
communist rulers.)

One of the most exciting parts of the book is
where Havel describes the dissident communitie's efforts to publish a
Havel essay advocating that the Czech government adhere to the terms
of the Charter 77 human rights accord to which they were a signatory.
The story is spine tingling thriller complete with car chases and
obscure drop points. It reads like a John le Carre novel except it is
real.

After you read "Disturbing to Peace" I also recommend
"The Magic Lanten" by Timothy Garton Ash. This is a first hand
account of the fall of the communism as the democratic revolution
rolled across Czechoslovakia, East German, Hungary, and Romania.
Garton Ash was privy to the inner circle of people who plotted and
executed these bloodless coups. (Bloodless everywhere except, of
course, in Romania.)

The four volumes of the Raj Quartet overlap and complement one another, while at the same time forwarding the main storyline of the slow twilight of the British ascendancy in India, always with the rape of a white girl by Indian men as the central lodestone everpresent in the background, the nightmare which is seldom mentioned but which none can drive from their minds. Events occur, are discussed, witnessed as newspaper reports, court documents, interviews, vague recollections from years later, or perceived directly by the main characters. Then the next volume will take two or three steps back into previous events, and these same events will be perceived from another angle, perhaps only as a vague report heard far away across the Indian plain, or witnessed directly by another character, or discussed in detail long after their occurrence over drinks on a verandah. This may at times seem like rehashing, indeed as one reads the four volumes one will be subjected to the account of the rape in the Bibighar Gardens many times over; but what will also become apparent is that additional details, sometimes minor variations in interpretation and sometimes crucial facts, are being added slowly to the events discussed, as though the window to the past were being progressively wiped cleaner and cleaner with successive strokes of Scott's pen. In this way he draws the picture of the last days of the Raj not in a conventional linear fashion, but recursively, and from multiple angles. One gets the clear impression of life in India during the first half of the 20th century as similar in nature: Fragmented, multifaceted, largely dependent upon perspective and experience and never perceived whole or all at once.

Book 4 is the tour-de-force of the series, the longest and the one that covers the greatest distance, emotionally and chronologically. Into the Laytons' social set come Nigel Rowan, an officer in the political branch whom we have met before in Book 2 interrogating Hari Kumar some years after his imprisonment, and Guy Perron, a sergeant in the intelligence service who is "chosen" against his will by Ronald Merrick to serve in his unit. Merrick seems deliberately to surround himself with people who dislike him: Guy Perron, Sarah Layton, and before them Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. Rowan and Perron, incidentally, are former schoolmates of Kumar's at the posh Chillingborough Academy in England. And they're not the only ones: The British in India seem constantly reminded that Kumar symbolizes the insoluble problem of India's Britishness. He's too British for the Indians and too Indian for the British. Perron is an excellent guide through the final days of the Raj, stolid and proper yet inwardly seething with intellectual outrage. An explosive yet sombre climax in 1947 details the very end of the British presence in India, the beginnings of the Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the country, and gives an expansive sense of just how far one has come from the small town of Mayapore and the darkly deserted Bibighar Gardens.

A DIVISION OF THE SPOILS by Paul Scott is the last book in his series known as the Raj Quartet. The four books are classics, that have been read and will continue to be read centuries from now as readers attempt to understand what happened during the last days of the British Raj in India. I read history but I am also a great fan of well written historical fiction and these books are extremely well written historical fiction. Having read them, I am much more enlightened about the struggles which continue today betweem Hindu and Muslim.

Many of the characters from the earlier books converge in DIVISION, and the book introduces a new character, Guy Perron, who is a Chillingborough-Cambridge educated historian whose "period" and place are mid-19th Century India. Guy's character is used to tie up all the loose ends.

After arriving in India as a British army sergeant (he has elected not become an officer although his education and class clearly warrent it), Guy has the misfortune to be "chosen" by the recently-promoted-to-LtCol. and very wicked Ronald Merrick as his aide-de-camp. Merrick is still riddled with class envy, and sees in Guy an excellent opportunity to abuse someone he despises. Fortunately, Guy is able to escape from Merrick through the graces of his Aunt Charlotte who pulls strings to have him released from the army.

Fortunately for Guy, he doesn't escape Merrick before he meets Sarah Layton. Their story is told in this fourth volume and certain elements of the tale bring to mind the earlier story of Hari Kumar and Daphne Manners. In fact, it is through Guy's meeting of Merrick, Sarah, and another Chillingburrian, Nigel Rowan (who interviewed Hari Kumar in prison) that he becomes interested in the events at Mayapore in 1942 and the subsequent consequences for all involved.

As with other great classics, in DIVISION things do not always evolve as the reader would have wished. This book is very realistic -- sorrow and joy are mixed. In JEWEL IN THE CROWN, the first book in the series, Lady Chatterjee says she does not want to go to a heaven that excludes joy and sorrow because being human requires one to feel joy and sorrow.

Perhaps it is because humans can experience sorrow they are capable of experiencing joy. In the end, the reader discovers Hari Kumar's fate and the identity of Philoctetes as well as the difference between Dharma and Karma. This is a powerful series and a fabulous ending to the tale.

The Raj Quartet comes to its spectacular conclusion with "A Division of the Spoils." Of the four books, I perhaps enjoyed this one the most. The main character (Guy Perron) is observant, funny, and human, so he's easy to like. He is a complete opposite of the story's antagonist, Ronald Merrick. The scenes in which they must work together (Perron is a sergeant and Merrick his officer) are some of the best. I could hardly put this book down and finished it in just a few days.

Please do not let the length of this series dissuade you from reading it! The books are all very compelling and well-written. If you like historical fiction, they are very much worth your time. I would recommend you watch the mini-series (I rented it from Netflix), read the 4 books, and then watch the mini again. You'll get quite a bit out of it that way.

Enjoy!

Anyone reading the reviews for the previous 3 books, knows I have struggled to read these series. However, Scott absolutely redeemed himself with this final book.

The first book focused on the British occupation of India during WWII and introduced us to the "Manners" case - the only interesting bit in a book that had long waffly passages describing India. Who needs to read a history book? This book would have done it... The 2nd book focused more on the "Layton's" and was much more readable as it was the changing India as seen through the eyes of a few key characters. The 3rd book was a boring repetition of the 2nd book and this last book, about the end of the British occupation and WWII was just brilliant!

Like his much more enjoyable 2nd book, this one is told almost exclusively through the eyes of key characters we met in previous books - and it introduces us to the rakish charm of Guy Perron. I always remember Charles Dance's interpretation of Guy Perron in the BBC series making a strong impression on me, but I found the character in the book even more engaging.

This last book in the series was absolutely stunning and made persevering through the whole series somewhat worth it. I say somewhat, because it has been a real trial getting through the denser parts of Books I and III and I wouldn't push this series on anyone, even though the last book is a literary accomplishment.

I try to think if this book is readable without having read the previous books, and although I suspect it is (Scott continues to go back over vast chunks of history from someone else's point of view), it would be a shallow interpretation without the reader gaining all the knowledge from the first 3 books.

This book is just as impressive as the three others of the Raj Quartet. Once again, the cast of interesting characters is huge; the atmosphere of the time is brilliantly captured and the variety of scenes/plots is well mastered. The book is instructive and yet enormously entertaining. The Raj Quartet is one of the most rewarding pieces of literature I have ever read.

This is the perfect synopsis of 10,000 years of the history of man's existence. Superbly organized by regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania) and interspersed with museum quality pictures, maps, key developments, and divided into 20 chapters representing time periods from pre-historic times to the present.

The quality of the presentation alone makes this format a difficult one to beat. Although it is light on substantive details, it is carefully indexed making collations and cross-references painless. A general introduction sets the stage of the book by summarizing the main political, social, and cultural themes of each period. The text gives equal prominence to each continent and the artwork shows typical scenes from key events of each period. In addition, labels enable the reader to locate the important empires, countries, and cities of the time.

Rounding out a perfect presentation, each chapter is opened with a world map providing a
visual overview of the period. And overlay map so that present cities and countries could be mapped back into the past would have been an unexpected bonus. But all things considered, for those of us who have not studied world history for more than 60 years, this is a fine place to start. Five stars.

Absolutely beautiful,comprehensive world history book - should be in EVERY classroom and home! A record of conflict of course, but chock full of the best that people have done on this planet(art,architecture,science, etc.)- inspiring and exciting. If anyone knows of a better illustrated world history book, please write me! Thank you DK - once again an incredible book.

DK Publishing never ceases to hold my interest with colorful and imagiantive formats, and this book is a perfect example. The full color pictures combined with intesting facts make this a great tool for any student of history. As a future teacher and history major, I highly recommend this book to students of all ages!

This is a simply marvelous book, good for all ages. (After all, I am a single adult with no children!) DK publishes a lot of "children's" books which I, as a mature, educated adult, find very useful and fascinating. This one, though, is probably the best of the lot.

I absolutely love this book. Every page is packed with fascinating information and color photos of real artifacts. I really like the way he ties it all together, giving an overview of the history of the entire world and which events occurred at the same time period. I bought it so I could teach my kids world history. I do think the reading level would be appropriate for a 3rd grader, but unfortunately the print is so small it makes it intimidating for younger kids.

This book is great. The pictures are bright with nice color and it teaches kids about animals too. It is one of our favorites, my grandkids are 2 & 5 they both really enjoy it.It always makes them laugh no matter how many times we read it.

Our class really loved this book. This is a book about animals and their different coverings. Their outside coverings keep them safe from predators. We all loved this book and you should read it.

We liked the book, DO FROG'S HAVE FUR? because it was about animal coverings. The funniest part was the frog wearing an Elvis hairdo. We enjoyed this book and we hope you do too.

We liked the book, Do Frogs Have Fur? because it was about animal coverings. The funniest part was the frog wearing an Elvis hairdo. We enjoyed this book and hope you do too.

We think that this is an interesting and marvelous book. It is a very good book about animals and their body coverings. We recommend you read this book because it was a very informational book.