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A major reassessment of the great English novelist

This impressive new book by the celebrated British critic Frank Kermode examines hitherto neglected aspects of the novelist E. M. Forster's life and work. Kermode is interested to see how it was that this apparently shy, reclusive man should have claimed and kept such a central position in the English writing of his time, even though for decades he composed no fiction and he was not close to any of his great contemporaries―Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce.

Concerning E. M. Forster has at its core the Clark Lectures that Kermode gave at Cambridge University in 2007 on the subject of Forster, eighty years after Forster himself gave those lectures, which became Aspects of the Novel. Kermode reappraised the influence and meaning of that great work, assessed the significance of Forster's profound musicality (Britten thought him the most musical of all writers), and offered a brilliant interpretation of Forster's greatest work, A Passage to India. But there is more to Concerning E. M. Forster than that. Thinking about Forster vis-àvis other great modern writers, noting his interest in Proust and Gide and his lack of curiosity about American fiction, and observing that Forster was closest to the people who shared not his literary interests or artistic vocation but, rather, his homosexuality, Kermode's book offers a wise, original, and persuasive new portrait not just of Forster but of twentieth-century English letters.

• Sales Rank: #2187673 in Books
• Published on: 2010-11-23
• Released on: 2010-11-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.97" h x .52" w x 5.31" l, .44 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 180 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Noted literary critic Kermode (Shakespeare's Language) presents in part his 2007 Clark lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, given eight decades after Forster's own Clark lectures (published as Aspects of the Novel) and in part a causerie (a loosely organized sequence of observations), in which Forster is reduced in size, placed in a wider context, and occasionally scolded. Kermode provides erudite and good-humored insights into Forster's artistic philosophies, plus deft analyses of the techniques of Forster's contemporaries, such as Henry James (whose style Forster disliked), Virginia Wolfe, Ford Madox Ford and Forster favorite Marcel Proust. Enlarging on Benjamin Britten's remark that Forster was our most musical novelist, Kermode shows how musical transformation and return of phrases was an art he practiced with success in his novels. Kermode makes the case that Forster's homosexuality was the reason for his long abstention from fiction and establishes that Forster placed himself in a cultivated minority above the working classes. Kermode is a delightful mentor for readers wishing to reflect not only on Forster's creativity but on the personal and social circumstances that restricted it. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Praise for Pieces of my Mind

""[Kermode's] essays and reviews . . . are a model of disinterested intelligence, fueled by a lifetime of reading and learning." --William H. Pritchard, "Chicago Tribune

""A sane, steady voice in English letters . . . What distinguishes [Kermode] is his sheer range of interests. Never a period specialist, he ranged freely over the whole of literature, just as keen on the hurly-burly of Elizabethan England as he is on writers of the modern period . . . An exemplary close reader, who can tease out a given work's most subtle frequencies." --Matthew Price, "The Boston Globe
"
Praise for "Shakespeare's Language

""A magnificent book, the honey of a lifetime's visits to the Shakespearean garden . . . Superb." --James Wood, "The New Republic

""A sane, canny, steadily informative book." --Brad Leithauser, "The New York Times Book Review"

"Praise for Pieces of my Mind
""[Kermode's] essays and reviews . . . are a model of disinterested intelligence, fueled by a lifetime of reading and learning." --William H. Pritchard, "Chicago Tribune
""A sane, steady voice in English letters . . . What distinguishes [Kermode] is his sheer range of interests. Never a period specialist, he ranged freely over the whole of literature, just as keen on the hurly-burly of Elizabethan England as he is on writers of the modern period . . . An exemplary close reader, who can tease out a given work's most subtle frequencies." --Matthew Price, "The Boston Globe
"
Praise for "Shakespeare's Language
""A magnificent book, the honey of a lifetime's visits to the Shakespearean garden . . . Superb." --James Wood, "The New Republic
""A sane, canny, steadily informative book." --Brad Leithauser, "The New York Times Book Review"

About the Author
Frank Kermode (1919-2010) is the author of many books, including Shakespeare's Language (FSG, 2000), Not Entitled (FSG, 1995), Forms of Attention, and The Sense of an Ending. He taught extensively in the United States, and lived in Cambridge, England.

Most helpful customer reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Aspects of Forster
By Charlus
Not since Lionel Trilling has such an eminent critic weighed in on EM Forster. The first half of the book consists of the three Clark Lectures Kermode gave at Cambridge, Forster's alma mater, and are clearly meant as formal pieces, each touching upon a different Forsterian topic. The first concerns Forster's series of Clark lectures that were also collected into a book: "Aspects of the Novel". The second explores musicality of Forster, both in his prose (his leitmotifs, strongly influenced by Wagner), his writing about music (the Beethoven in "Howard's End", the opera in "Where Angels Fear to Tread", the piano piece in "A Room With A View") as well as his collaboration with Britten. Finally Kermode touches on what he feels is Forster's masterpiece, "A Passage To India" and how hard he worked to be vague yet believable in order to create the sense of mystery and the unknowable at the heart of that novel.

The second half is a freely flowing (and truth be told at times mildly repetitive) discourse of topics of interest to Kermode about Forster and allows him to be a bit more critical,exploring the strengths as well as the perceived weaknesses (e.g. Forster's condescension to a character such as Leonard Bast). This part is less carefully argued but in a way even richer, as it lets Kermode have free reign over what interests him: Edward Carpenter's influence, the role of Bloomsbury and Forster's relationship with Virginia Woolf, Forster's strengths and limitations as a literary critic, etc.

The whole book is unbelievably stimulating, like having a conversation with an amazingly learned man (which Kermode obviously is) about a writer you both love, even if your own is unstinting and his comes with reservations. Not a page is turned without some insight, some intriguing fact or some well argued opinion to keep you interested. Literary criticism rarely comes this good from start to finish and fans of Forster especially will place this volume alongside their Trilling as work that has become essential to their conversation about this wonderful writer and humane man.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Witty Moralist
By Mary E. Sibley
Forster liked the moralism of H.G. Wells better than Henry James. To Forster WAR AND PEACE was the greatest of all novels. James called it a baggy monster. In ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL Forster distinguishes story from plot. Forster accepted models for his fiction in the works of Flaubert, Maupassant, Turgenev. He admired Proust. Forster didn't analyze THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford and its use of an unreliable narrator.

Greatness interested Forster. Benjamin Britten claimed that Forster was the most musical novelist of his place and time. A piece by Forster on George Crabbe inspired Britten to write his first opera, PETER GRIMES. Forster collaborated on the libretto for BILLY BUDD. Britten liked Forster's treatment of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in HOWARD'S END. Wagner crops up in THE LONGEST JOURNEY. Forster told the PARIS REVIEW that in novel writing he preferred creative accident to conscious forethought.

Lionel Trilling remarked that Forster refused greatness. Forster at different times considered whether Virginia Woolf, Andre Gide, and Edward Carpenter were great. Forster laments that there is no religion, no philosophy in the novels of Henry James. Forster is interested in the superhuman. In the second part of the book, Kermode looks at E.M. Forster's life as an artist.

One thinks of Forster as primarily the writer of five novels. At the time of his death in 1970 he was still famous. Of his contemporaries only Bertrand Russell outlived him. Publication of ROOM WITH A VIEW and HOWARD'S END elevated Forster to a select company. Finally, A PASSAGE TO INDIA was considered a modern classic. He had been an obscure young man. He never experienced poverty. His adult clique came out of Cambridge, (King's College and the Apostles). Forster felt that David Garnett, as a reviewer, helped to promote the positive public reception of his earliest novels to be issued, WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD and THE LONGEST JOURNEY. Garnett was a discriminating critic, he had proved to understand the art of Conrad and D.H. Lawrence.

There is a full-throated discussion of Forster's treatment of his character Leonard Bast from HOWARD'S END in this book. It seems the problem is one of class. I guess the issue was did the author portray his character fairly. Given Forster's biases, it is assumed he could not. Forster is on record as finding workers uninteresting. Apparently Forster didn't make much attempt to read systematically. D.H. Lawrence described Forster as the last Englishman. Kermode suggests that Forster is the modern version of the witty clergyman.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Loving E. M. Forster
By D. Jacobson
If you are a fan of E. M. Forster, you will enjoy this book. Frank Kermode gives his own critique of Forster's Aspects of a Novel and adds his thoughts on Forster's novels, especially Passage to India. He obviously enjoys Forster's works, but can still step away enough to relate some criticism. Kermode has an easy writing style, scholarly but not overshadowed with pretension. For lovers of Forster, this book will broaden your appreciation.

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> Free PDF On Love: Poems, by Edward Hirsch

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"Life has to have the plenitude of art," Edward Hirsch affirms in his fifth volume of poems, On Love, which further establishes him as a major artist. From its opening epigraph by Thomas Hardy and an initiating prayer for transformation, On Love takes up the subjects of separateness and fusion, autonomy and blur. The initial progression of fifteen shapely and passionate lyrics (including a sonnet about the poet at seven, a villanelle about the loneliness of a pioneer woman on the prairie, and an elegy for Amy Clampitt) opens out into a sequence of meditations about love. These arresting love poems are spoken by a gallery of historical figures from Denis Diderot, Heinrich Heine, Charles Baudelaire, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Gertrude Stein, Federico Garcia Lorca, Zora Neale Hurston, and Colette. Each anatomizes a different aspect of eros in poems uttered by a chorus of historical authorities that is also a lone lover's yearning voice. Personal, literary, On Love offers the most formally adept and moving poetry by the author Harold Bloom hails as utterly fresh, canonical, and necessary.

• Sales Rank: #3159154 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-19
• Released on: 1998-05-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .69" h x 6.34" w x 8.78" l,
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Hirsch writes a controlled, precise, formally ambitious verse reminiscent of the new critical concoctions of a young Richard Wilbur or Anthony Hecht. Reading this fifth collection (which follows 1994's Earthly Measures), one is always aware of a formidable intelligence, wide reading, and an ambition to connect the poet's own achievement with the great poetry of the past. The defects of Hirsch's style, however, are brought out equally clearly by his decision to focus nearly every poem on the title theme, a subject that demands at least as much passion as craft. The poems in the first section of the book are personal, their main themes being the poet's childhood, his Jewishness, and his marriage. Here Hirsch sees love as a longing for transcendence: "Touching your body/ I was like a rabbi poring/ over a treatise on ecstasy, the message hidden in the scrolls." In the second half, a sequence that provides the book's title, Hirsch is impersonal: each poem addresses the subject of love in the voice of a famous writerAStein, Lawrence and Wilde, among others. It is a highly artificial premise, made more so by the incredibly strict forms: the poems are mainly modified sestinas, in which words are often rhymed with themselves (often to the detriment of both sense and rhythm). Unfortunately, these poems are too much pastiche and puppet show; Hirsch doesn't inhabit his speakers so much as employ the most basic clich?s about them. Thus in "Bertolt Brecht," we encounter the phrases "free love," "Karl Marx," and "means of production"; in "Denis Diderot," we find "Rational Will," "encyclopedia," and "enlightening." Hirsch's conceit is an interesting one, familiar from his other books (including the NBCC Award-winning Wild Gratitude), but here it fails to get beyond the level of mere device.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is Hirsch's fifth published volume of poetry, which follows an impressive series of grants and awards: the Lavan Younger Poets Award, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. On Love lives up to Hirsch's growing reputation as a major American poet. Actually, this book is a dual enterprise. The untitled first section contains a number of moving personal revelations not necessarily touching on love, such as "Blue Hydrangea" (a blossom serving as a metaphor for recovery) or "Hotel Window" (taxi cabs on an urban street serving as an allegory of death), but the second section, "On Love" proper, is a series of "love poems" rendered through a variety of personas: Diderot, Heine, Baudelaire, Meredith Brecht, and others. The effects are often stunning in their complex evocations of the adopted voices as well as Hirsch's own insight. For all poetry collections.?Thomas F. Merrill, emeritus, Univ. of Delaware, Newark
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Hirsch is passionate, erudite, and extraordinarily close to his chosen ancestors, such as Orpheus, a presence, too, in Earthly Measures (1994), and such orphic figures as Jimi Hendrix, Charles Baudelaire, and D. H. Lawrence. So attuned is Hirsch to his heroes, some two dozen writers in all, he imagines them participating in a dazzling beyond-the-grave "conversation" about love and all but channels their voices as he traces their turns of mind and offers subtle interpretations of their work. His empathy extends to women as well as men, and some of the sharpest of these complex poems illuminate the psyches of Colette, Gertrude Stein, and Margaret Fuller. Hirsch is without question heir to all the great poets of the past, and when he considers his own life, he writes lyric poems nearly incandescent in their sensuality. Yet for all his ravishing intensity, Hirsch suffers the chill of the void, always aware of a "sickening emptiness" and of being "in the midst of nothing." He does find comfort, however, in declaring that "love alone can redeem our universe." Donna Seaman

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Four Stars
By Daniel Crowley
Great poet

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Mature, meditative, and definitely a grand addition to moder
By A Customer
I cannot fathom why someone gave this book one star and I must admit that this review is somewhat of a reaction to that.
I have read a lot of contemporary poetry, and often I find that authors become caught up in personal minutiae that detract from rather than add to the progression of thought and feeling throughout their collections. Hirsch avoids that with a pared down style that makes every word add to a building of depth and feeling.
"Ocean of Grass," for example, is a beautiful villanelle that avoids the trite romanticizing of prairie life and shows hwo harsh life was without succumbing to stereotypes of grizzled sttlers. Hirsch consistently uses forms to enhance the poetry rather than forcing poems into forms.
As a student, I have to make careful choices about what books to buy on my limited budget. When considering what to buy I can only afford to buy the books that have lines going through my head all day until I have to look at the poem and marvel over it some more. On Love is one of those books and a worthy addition to any library.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Yet Another Review
By A Customer
I must politely disagree with my fellow readers. I enjoyed Edward Hirsch's new book, On Love, completely. This poet, Edward Hirsch, has continued, unabatedly, to define successfully what it means to be human in an often inhumane world. If not for any other reason, I find it important to read his poems for this very reason-- for finding such wisdom has become rare, indeed. And in this collection of poems, as were present in his other books, there are moments of undeniable beauty. I was left speechless by his poem for Amy Clampitt, entitled Iowa Flora, and the poem Blue Hydrangea, among others. I believe this collection of poems to complement his ever-growing and ambitious oeuvre. I would suggest this book to any friend who was interested in reading great poetry in a time when great poetry is more harder to find than ever.

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^ Free PDF Talk Stories, by Jamaica Kincaid

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From "The Talk of the Town," Jamaica Kincaid's first impressions of snobbish, mobbish New York

Talk Pieces is a collection of Jamaica Kincaid's original writing for the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town," composed during the time when she first came to the United States from Antigua, from 1978 to 1983. Kincaid found a unique voice, at once in sync with William Shawn's tone for the quintessential elite insider's magazine, and (though unsigned) all her own--wonderingly alive to the ironies and screwball details that characterized her adopted city. New York is a town that, in return, fast adopts those who embrace it, and in these early pieces Kincaid discovers many of its hilarious secrets and urban mannerisms. She meets Miss Jamaica, visiting from Kingston, and escorts the reader to the West Indian-American Day parade in Brooklyn; she sees Ed Koch don his "Cheshire-cat smile" and watches Tammy Wynette autograph a copy of Lattimore's Odyssey; she learns the worlds of publishing and partying, of fashion and popular music, and how to call a cauliflower a crudite.

The book also records Kincaid's development as a young writer--the newcomer who sensitively records her impressions here takes root to become one of our most respected authors.

• Sales Rank: #140225 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-09
• Released on: 2002-01-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.50" h x .61" w x 5.50" l, .80 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780374527914
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Amazon.com Review
Restraint, it turns out, is a highly effective critical strategy. In Talk Stories, her collection of New Yorker "Talk of the Town" pieces dating from 1974 to 1983, Jamaica Kincaid writes prose as bare and bright as a light bulb. Her sentences are so clean that she seems to know exactly what she's talking about. And that's what allows these morsels of reportage to transcend their genre and become small, pointed, thrilling judgments on the world. In "Romance," a piece on a conference of Harlequin romance writers, Kincaid writes, "The women, each of whom looked freshly coiffed, sat at tables in the middle of which were large bowls of yellow and gold chrysanthemums. The women seemed very excited." There we have subjectivity in the cool guise of objectivity. On the other hand, when Kincaid is for something, she comes right out and says it. The oddity is where these hosannas land. A knitting shop in Connecticut, for example, is "perhaps the nicest store in the world, because it is run and owned by perhaps one of the nicest women in the world--a woman named Beatrice Morse Davenport."

In her introduction, Kincaid writes: "All sentences, all paragraphs about this part of my life, my life as a writer, must begin with George Trow." The latter, who discovered Kincaid, wrote the kind of dry, clever occasional prose that flourished in the New Yorker in the 1970s and 1980s. Kincaid's Trow-like writing is the weakest, most attention-hungry in the book. "Party" is written in the style of a Nancy Drew mystery, "Two Book Parties" is written as a quiz, and "Expense Account" is just that--an expense account of a press breakfast, including the coy entry, "Cost of clothes other reporters wore to press breakfast (too complicated to make even a wild guess)." These pieces too closely resemble her mentor's work--clever but not actually, you know, funny. The structural fanciness seems cheap next to Kincaid's fine, goofily opinionated reporting. Still, after these wobbly forays into experimentation, she began to write the fiction that made her famous, so her fooling around seems to have paid off in the end. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly
Fans of the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" column will rejoice with the publication of Kincaid's new book, a collection of 77 short pieces she wrote at the magazine between 1978 and 1983, when it was under the stewardship of William Shawn. Preceded by an adoring foreword by former colleague Ian Frazier, the book opens with Kincaid's modest description of her evolution into a star writer, the realization of a dream she held as a young girl on the West Indian island of Antigua. Following a chance meeting with New Yorker writer George Trow, Kincaid was hired to contribute to the "Talk of the Town," which she quickly made her own with a spare, highly innovative narrative style. Approaching her assignments as "little stories in themselves," Kincaid experimented with the form and substance of each piece. From her richly detailed account of New York City's West Indian-American Day carnival to a wry tale about a late-night party at the fashionable eatery Mr. Chow's, her exceptional ability to record events and conversations never fails her. Shawn's "Talk of the Town" had many restrictions; Frazier recalls that writers couldn't use curse words or write about sex or about the journalistic topic of the week. Within these constraints, Kincaid moves through a wide variety of subjects: the slick soul of R&B pros Archie Bell and the Drells, the First International Soap Opera Exposition, Gloria Vanderbilt's regal greetings at a book signing, the manic wit of Richard Pryor, a mock expense account for a luncheon for Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman and his wife. This collection is more than a chart of Kincaid's maturation into an accomplished writer; it's an astounding display of early literary skill and youthful daring.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker
These pieces, published between 1974 and 1983, display Kincaid's knack for recording the perfect absurdity at a press conference, or the best line at a party: "Sensation, as you know, is the tyranny of Los Angeles."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
The apprenticeship of a wonderful writer
By Eileen G.
Jamaica Kincaid describes, in her terrific Introduction, her beginnings as a writer in New York in the '70's. She made a few great friends, and one brought her to the attention of William Shawn, beloved and legendary editor of the 'New Yorker.' He invited to submit short pieces. That magazine, which Kincaid points out was "a magazine that has since gone out of business, though there exists now a magazine by that name," was her home for over ten years. Kincaid's brief acid note and comment introduces an unignorable subtext: there existed a deeply valued and memorable world, now gone.
These pieces were Kincaid's apprenticeship in writing. They are a pleasure to read.
All were unsigned (giving writers a freedom she valued) when they first appeared in the magazine. Here they are arranged chronologically. If you are new to Jamaica Kincaid's mind and writing, they are a great introduction. If you are familiar with her amazing novels (or gardening essays for that matter) they are fresh, many are very funny, and all are examples, in varying ways, of how to write.
Great book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
I enjoyed!
By Hiroshi Watanabe
This book is a collection of her earlier anonymous columns for 'The New Yorker.' They were written in 70's and early 80's, so the subjects are old. For instance, Sting (and the Police) and Boy George (and Culture Club) were gaining popularity in the book. But she already established her crisp and dynamic and music-like prose style. It's my pleasure to read her candid and sometimes sarcastic comments about snobs. It's my pleasure to read her stories about her native country, Antigua, and her parents. She wrote the stories as her friend's stories (remember that those were anonymous columns), but they were of her own prose style.

I read all of her books, and I don't like much her previous book, 'My Garden,' but I enjoyed 'Talk Stories.'

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Alaska
Read by Peter Graves
In the grand tradition he has made his own. Michener gives us the dramatic saga–from prehistoric times to the present–of an awesome and challenging land and the people who came to inhabit it.

Chesapeake
Read by George Grizzard

Set amid the natural and historic riches of the Chesapeake, Michener’s magnificent story brings to life–through almost four centuries–our land, our history, our people.

Texas
Read by Peter Graves
The mega-besteller that details the birth, the rise, the entire history of the place called Texas–the past and the present joined in an extraordinary epic story of violence and heroism, devotion and betrayal, sacrifice and patriotism.

“Colorful, informative and historically accurate!”
------Los Angeles Times Book Review

• Sales Rank: #3374880 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-29
• Released on: 2001-05-29
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 6
• Dimensions: 6.13" h x 2.63" w x 4.14" l,
• Running time: 540 minutes
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From the Inside Flap
Alaska
Read by Peter Graves
In the grand tradition he has made his own. Michener gives us the dramatic saga?from prehistoric times to the present?of an awesome and challenging land and the people who came to inhabit it.

Chesapeake
Read by George Grizzard

Set amid the natural and historic riches of the Chesapeake, Michener?s magnificent story brings to life?through almost four centuries?our land, our history, our people.

Texas
Read by Peter Graves
The mega-besteller that details the birth, the rise, the entire history of the place called Texas?the past and the present joined in an extraordinary epic story of violence and heroism, devotion and betrayal, sacrifice and patriotism.

?Colorful, informative and historically accurate!?
------Los Angeles Times Book Review

Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
3 great reads
By Highlanderthal
3 great reads for one price, a great author and 3 novels that are all classics in their own right, a cant miss proposition!!!

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>> Fee Download The Death of Artemio Cruz: A Novel (FSG Classics), by Carlos Fuentes

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As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, the all-powerful newspaper magnate and land baron, lies confined to his bed and, in dreamlike flashes, recalls the pivotal episodes of his life. Carlos Fuentes manipulates the ensuing kaleidoscope of images with dazzling inventiveness, layering memory upon memory, from Cruz's heroic campaigns during the Mexican Revolution, through his relentless climb from poverty to wealth, to his uneasy death. Perhaps Fuentes's masterpiece, The Death of Artemio Cruz is a haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico.

• Sales Rank: #132154 in Books
• Brand: Fuentes, Carlos/ MacAdam, Alfred (TRN)
• Published on: 2009-02-03
• Released on: 2009-02-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.20" h x .83" w x 5.47" l,
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
First translated into English more than a quarter-century ago, Fuentes's acclaimed novel about modern Mexico has since gone through nearly 30 printings. Despite its popularity, the original English version often was unclear, obscuring Fuentes's language and intent. MacAdam's meticulous new rendering gives the English-reading public a fresh slant on the fictional Cruz, a newspaper owner and land baron. The novel opens with Cruz on his deathbed, and plunges us into his thoughts as he segues from the past to his increasingly disoriented present. Drawn as a tragic figure, Cruz fights bravely during the Mexican Revolution but in the process loses his idealism--and the only woman who ever loved him. He marries the daughter of a hacienda owner and, in the opportunistic, postwar climate, he uses her family connections and money to amass an ever-larger fortune. Cocky, audacious, corrupt, Cruz, on another level, represents the paradoxes of recent Mexican history. Written before Fuentes's masterpieces A Change of Skin and Terra Nostra, this novel, with its freewheeling experimental prose and psychological exploration, anticipates many of the author's later themes.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“This is more than a retranslation of a masterpiece. It amounts to a restoration: here is the magnificent book that Fuentes wrote originally, superbly rendered by Alfred Mac Adam into an English version that precisely meshes with Fuentes's Spanish.” ―Douglas Day

“Carlos Fuentes is perhaps the only living Latin-American writer who has it in him to do for his country what Euclides da Cunha did for Brazil in Os Sertoes, and to make the passion of the land's rebirth and repossession comprehensible to the outsider.” ―Anthony West, The New Yorker

“Remarkable, in the scope of the human drama it pictures, the corrosive satire and sharp dialogue.” ―Mildred Adams, The New York Times Book Review

Language Notes
Text: English, Spanish (translation)

Most helpful customer reviews

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
Make it Work for You
By Rebecca Rae
The book was beautifully written, the plot was interesting, and the character development went above and beyond most books.

So why is there such controversy over this book? Well it is easy to say, this is not your cruise vacation book to read while laying by the beach. The first chapter will have you kicking and screaming for anything tangible to grab onto. The only person in this book you have to guide you is Artemio Cruz, who is sharing with you his memories. However, he isn't always the most stable guide. Half the book he is on his deathbed rambling, switching tenses and narratives.

So that is the first warning. However if you are willing to invest some time, you can find an entire new meaning to life within this book. If you can't invest the time, go out and rent Citizen Kane, you'll get the gist in about two hours, rather then the month minimum you'll need to get this book. Even after rereading it, the book leaves dozens of pieces in the book isolated and unconnected. (In fact we never how Artemio gets from being 13 to 23, and if you read the book you'll know why this is important and frustrating).

So what does this book have to offer besides several headaches and why in the world did I give it five stars? Well I could throw a lot of pretty adjectives out at you, but I won't. I will tell it to you simply. This book makes you think. And not in the painful way. If you fight this book, you will never get it. If you embrace it, even in it's most challenging passages, you will be opened to a whole new world of ideas. Ideas about memory, desire, life, death, and our place within society are embedded in this story.

Bottom line: This story is like an excavation site waiting to be dug up, hidden with endless treasures. If you are willing to put in the time, you won't be disappointed. If that sounds like too much work, move right along then.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
The Death of Artemio Cruz
By Damian Kelleher
Artemio Cruz owns a vast empire in Mexico, encompassing newspapers, land, construction and more. He has a beautiful wife and daughter, both of whom he cannot stand, nor they him. His aide, Padilla, a man he trusts with his empire, and one he has grown to love as the son he lost so many years ago. He is so important, so respected, so necessary to the Mexican country that the President tries to impress him, rather than the other way around. But Artemio Cruz is dying, painfully and slowly, and it is while dying that he has a chance to evaluate his life, to take a good look at himself and what he has achieved.

Cruz is a complicated man. As a youth, he fought in the various, chaotic revolutions and counter-revolutions that periodically caused Mexico to cease functioning as a nation, becoming little more than a series of loosely connected fiefdoms. Using his intelligence and daring, he was able to secure a command in the fight against Pancho Villa, but more importantly, he also knew when to leave the life of a soldier for a more solid existence. As a young man, he met Regina, the woman he was to love until his dying day.

As an older man, he is respected and influential, but also cold and distant. Gone are the passionate, poorly thought-out heroics of his early adulthood. He no longer loves like it doesn't matter, or cares much for the reality of another person. At his annual New Year's party, Cruz retires early to a comfortable leather chair positioned so he can watch everyone else have fun. The unspoken rules of the party forbids guests to talk to him at all, other than to pay their respects. His wife lives in another city, and a prostitute shares his bed this night, as she has every other night for the past eight years.

The three technique Fuentes uses in painting Cruz's life are quite interesting. In the present of the novel, when Cruz is dying, the narration is first person, disjointed, and very, very personal. No physical details are omitted, no matter how disgusting. Thoughts are fragmented, jumping from place to place, from time to time. The first few instances of this are difficult to follow, because we do not yet know Cruz's life, but as the novel progresses, the chaotic mental ramblings of the present become clearer, if not for Cruz but for us.

The second stylistic method used are the second person sections. These are generally short, but are the harshest and most self-critical. It is as though Cruz has stepped back from himself, created a 'you' for him to pour forth his bile, resentment, anger and also satisfaction about himself and his own life. These sections are just as personal as the first-person chapters, but in an emotional sense. He probes at the reasons he did this, or why he would think that. These sections are almost entirely devoid of other characters, it is simply Cruz with himself, condemning and praising, remembering and trying to forget.

The third - and most plentiful - type of chapters are in third person, dated, and taken from various times throughout his life. It is here we learn of Regina, here we learn why the phrase, 'We crossed the river on horseback' is so important, why his wife hates him, and more. In these sections, we are almost never shown his thoughts, nor those of anybody else. They are very detached, expositionary scenes, helping to explain the intimate thoughts and ramblings of the second- and first-person chapters.

Towards the end of the narrative, as Artemio Cruz approaches his death, the 'you' and the 'I' narratives start to merge, fuzzing and growing indistinct. He rails against himself, then defends his decisions over the years, then praises himself for the love he has, even now, for Regina. The sections - interspersing the 'you' and 'I' and even 'he' of Cruz within the space of four sentences - could be confusing if done earlier, but because we are familiar with his life and thoughts, they make sense. There are pages long sequences of broken thoughts, flitting between time and place without warning or explanation, and surprisingly, these are effective and do not come across at all as a gimmick. Rather, it is the character of Cruz - presented elsewhere as so strong and stable when old, so mercurial and romantic when young - breaking apart, unable to accept his death, unwilling to leave his life, even if it will mean re-uniting with Regina.

In the end, what we have is a character study. The setting - early 20th century Mexico - is rich and colourful, although at times, it does fade into the background as Artemio Cruz's character takes over. This is by no means a negative, as Cruz is a wonderful diverse man. He has weaknesses and strengths, and the novel spends as much time of his flaws as it does on his achievements. It is a credit to Fuentes that the vibrancy of Mexico shines through in what is, primarily, a journey through the mind of a proud man, a lonely man, a dying man: Artemio Cruz.

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful.
Mexican Bigshot's Life Reflects Times
By Bob Newman
The violent society of Mexico in the 19th century produced a bloody revolution that laid the foundations for a new Mexico after 1920. The revolution devoured its dreamers and hopers, as revolutions tend to do, so that it was co-opted by the most violent, least idealistic types, who arranged Mexican society to their benefit, even if the common man ultimately did derive some advantages too. For the winners, especially as the century wore on, it seemed as if goose neck stuffed with pork-liver paté, or perhaps the damask armchairs by a fireplace in the huge living room loomed far larger than social justice. For them, the ruthless grab for power turned out to be a successful gambit. Artemio Cruz is such a successful individual, determined to let nothing stop his rise to the top, taking advantage of every chance brought to him by the tides of war and political intrigue.
The backward-forward nature of the narrative, the wordy lyricism interspersed with terse action sequences, and the dwelling upon illness, decay, and death locate this novel on the absolute opposite end of the literary continuum from say, the quiet, spare prose of Japanese author Kawabata Yasunari. This is a novel of bright colors, of deep, intense feelings, a novel in which the author thrives on vocabulary and the effect of the words themselves, a novel of ultimately surprising revelations that do not stop until the very last pages. Artemio Cruz desires power for its own sake, he will stoop to any deed to acquire it. Fuentes scrapes back layer upon layer of the character, digging deep into his psyche to tell why.
THE DEATH OF ARTEMIO CRUZ is a highly intellectual, cleverly-constructed novel that is not easy to read. It encapsulates a most turbulent 70 years of Mexican history, from 1889 to 1959, and at the same time, is a poetical, psychological study of an individual that can have few peers in the realm of modern literature. Fuentes opens everything subtly, gradually. You meet a dying man on his last day and through flashbacks come to understand who he is---cruel, cynical, lucky, devastated---and how he destroyed everyone around him, yet kept them loyal through money and power. If basically an unattractive personality, Artemio Cruz is not a monster; he bears considerable similarity to people you know, maybe to yourself, but the times made him what he was. Fuentes has written a masterpiece: one of the great novels of the 20th century, certainly. If what I have written intrigues you, be sure to read it.

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A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver.
In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl -- her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house -- is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known.

From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together -- their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition.

Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, Plainsong is a novel to care about, believe in, and learn from.

• Sales Rank: #53881 in Books
• Color: Hardcover,
• Brand: Alfred A. Knopf
• Published on: 1999-09-21
• Released on: 1999-09-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.55" h x 1.14" w x 6.48" l, 1.40 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Features

• Great product!

Amazon.com Review
Plainsong, according to Kent Haruf's epigraph, is "any simple and unadorned melody or air." It's a perfect description of this lovely, rough-edged book, set on the very edge of the Colorado plains. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher whose wife can't--or won't--get out of bed; the McPherons are two bachelor brothers who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn. Their lives parallel each other in much the same way any small-town lives would--until Maggie Jones, another teacher, makes them intersect. Even as she tries to draw Guthrie out of his black cloud, she sends Victoria to live with the two elderly McPheron brothers, who know far more about cattle than about teenage girls. Trying to console her when she think she's hurt her baby, the best lie they can come up with is this: "I knew of a heifer we had one time that was carrying a calf, and she got a length of fencewire down her some way and it never hurt her or the calf."

Holt, Colorado, is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone's business before that business even happens. In a way, that's true of the book, too. There's not a lot of suspense here, plotwise; you can see each narrative twist and turn coming several miles down the pike. What Plainsong has instead is note-perfect dialogue, surrounded by prose that's straightforward yet rich in particulars: "a woman walking a white lapdog on a piece of ribbon," glimpsed from a car window; the boys' mother, her face "as pale as schoolhouse chalk"; the smells of hay and manure, the variations of prairie light. Even the novel's larger questions are sized to a domestic scale. Will Guthrie find love? Will Victoria run away with the father of her baby? Will the McPherons learn to hold a conversation? But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Plainsong manages to capture nothing less than an entire world--fencing pliers, calf-pullers, and all. Kent Haruf has a gorgeous ear, and a knack for rendering the simple complex. --Mary Park

From Publishers Weekly
In the same way that the plains define the American landscape, small-town life in the heartlands is a quintessentially American experience. Holt, Colo., a tiny prairie community near Denver, is both the setting for and the psychological matrix of Haruf's beautifully executed new novel. Alternating chapters focus on eight compassionately imagined characters whose lives undergo radical change during the course of one year. High school teacher Tom Guthrie's depressed wife moves out of their house, leaving him to care for their young sons. Ike, 10, and Bobby, nine, are polite, sensitive boys who mature as they observe the puzzling behavior of adults they love. At school, Guthrie must deal with a vicious student bully whose violent behavior eventually menaces Ike and Bobby, in a scene that will leave readers with palpitating hearts. Meanwhile, pregnant teenager Victoria Roubideaux, evicted by her mother, seeks help from kindhearted, pragmatic teacher Maggie Jones, who convinces the elderly McPheron brothers, Raymond and Harold, to let Victoria live with them in their old farmhouse. After many decades of bachelor existence, these gruff, unpolished cattle farmers must relearn the art of conversation when Victoria enters their lives. The touching humor of their awkward interaction endows the story with a heartwarming dimensionality. Haruf's (The Tie That Binds) descriptions of rural existence are a richly nuanced mixture of stark details and poetic evocations of the natural world. Weather and landscape are integral to tone and mood, serving as backdrop to every scene. His plain, Hemingwayesque prose takes flight in lyrical descriptions of sunsets and birdsong, and condenses to the matter-of-fact in describing the routines of animal husbandry. In one scene, a rancher's ungloved hand repeatedly reaches though fecal matter to check cows for pregnancy; in another, readers follow the step-by-step procedure of an autopsy on a horse. Walking a tightrope of restrained design, Haruf steers clear of sentimentality and melodrama while constructing a taut narrative in which revelations of character and rising emotional tensions are held in perfect balance. This is a compelling story of grief, bereavement, loneliness and anger, but also of kindness, benevolence, love and the making of a strange new family. In depicting the stalwart courage of decent, troubled people going on with their lives, Haruf's quietly eloquent account illumines the possibilities of grace. Agent, Peter Matson. 75,000 copy first printing; 12-city author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-This saga of seven residents of Holt, CO, details the problems they face and how they come together to solve them. Their divergent stories begin with Tom Guthrie, a high school teacher whose wife suffers a breakdown and abandons him and their two young sons. The Guthrie boys are often on their own while their stressed-out father struggles to keep the family together. Next are Victoria Roubideaux, 17 years old, alone, and pregnant; and Harold and Raymond McPheron, two elderly brothers who know nothing about "real life" outside their farm. It is Maggie Jones, Tom's colleague, who provides him with solace and brings resolution to these many dilemmas. Maggie talks the McPheron brothers into taking the pregnant teenager in, even though they have some reservations about this arrangement. Victoria and the two lonely men adjust to one another and form a family unit that none of them has known before. The characters tell their stories in alternating chapters. All of them are struggling but it is their caring, kindness, and forgiving spirits that help them support one another. There is a keen sense of place here-a place where family and community matter. YAs can learn from this novel about nontraditional families, about small towns where everybody knows everybody else's business, and about the power of love.
Carol Clark, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Most helpful customer reviews

78 of 83 people found the following review helpful.
A peaceful read, like a vacation without agenda or urgency.
By Maria Atas
Plainsong offers you snapshots of several lives interwoven into a story set in the small town of Holt. Its prose is simple, without exaggeration and unnecessary stimulation, yet as you continue reading, it pulls you into caring about its characters and their troubles.

I started out reading this book impatiently looking for a punch-line or a twist. But I soon learned to enjoy Plainsong like a vacation with no agenda or urgency. There is no build up, climax or low point. But it is involving just the same. It's a novel about regular people that will remind you of friends you may already have, with problems that are timeless yet contemporary- teenage pregnancy, divorce, depression, as well as a healthy dose of the good things in life - friendship, generosity, the support of a community, new beginnings.

A peaceful read; Plainsong's charm creeps up on you if you allow it. But you have to be in the "right" mindset or mood for it. If you're one who only gets a thrill out of an adventure-type of book, with many twist and turns, or prefer the surprise of an unpredictable ending from a fast paced novel or mystery, this book may disapoint you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A breathtakingly beautiful book
By marius
Kent Haruf is a genius with words. The dialogue rings so true that you feel as if you are listening to the book when you are merely reading it. Populated by some unforgettable characters it is full of tenderness and brutality seen as simply part of life on a ranch in a small town. I LOVED every word in this book and can't wait to start the next book in the trilogy. The literary world lost a great talent when Mr Haruf died. We are fortunate to have the body of work he left behind. The McPheron brothers stole my heart and I found myself smiling whenever they were speaking in the book. An exceptional meditation on the nature of love.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A novel like a vacation; easy and engrossing
By Anne M. Hunter
When my book club chose this author I was a bit dubious about a book set in rural Colorado, written by a man I'd never heard of. But it's an amazing book, quiet, steady, not flashy but very skillfully written. I ordered the next one in the series the minute I finished it, and I'm pleased to see that Haruf has written quite a few books in the same setting. It's an easy read, like dropping into these people's lives for a bit, and yet quite gripping.

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! Download Ebook The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, by Karen Armstrong

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In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, were all secondary flowerings of the original Israelite vision. Now, in The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal “Axial Age” can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times.

Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action.

In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change.

• Sales Rank: #243300 in Books
• Brand: Alfred A. Knopf / Random House
• Published on: 2006-03-28
• Released on: 2006-03-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.56" h x 1.55" w x 6.72" l, 1.10 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

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433 of 451 people found the following review helpful.
Original Religions Stress Compassion
By The Spinozanator
Karen Armstrong spent seven years as a nun, has written 16 previous books about religious matters, and is a prominent commentator on religious affairs in Britain. Her views have changed considerably since her earlier days in the convent, but she maintains tremendous respect for the world's great religions. She is a self-proclaimed "monotheist," but her writings seem to merely support and encourage a spiritual approach toward life - rather than a belief in any deity..."Human beings are spiritual animals...homo sapiens is also homo religiosus."

Armstrong's topic in this book is the Axial Age - those seven centuries from 900BCE to 200BCE that were marked by violence and warfare. In four different regions of the world, four great theologies (or ideologies) arose specifically to oppose these violent trends:

China - Daoism and Confucianism

India - Hinduism and Buddhism

Palestine - Judaism, which led to Christianity and Islam

Greece - philosophical rationalism

In all four geographical regions, the initial teaching was of tolerance, love, and humane treatment of others - despite the tendency for some of these to evolve into something else. Each tradition formulated its own version of the Golden Rule because what mattered was how one acts - putting ethical behavior at the heart of the spiritual life. The original prophets never relied on dogma - their emphasis was consistently on compassion. "The consensus of these four areas is an eloquent testimony to the unanimity of the spiritual quest of the human race. The Axial peoples all found that the compassionate ethic worked."

When secondary prophets or philosophers did start to insist on obligatory doctrines, it was usually a sign that the movement was losing its momentum. In our religious institutions and their dogmas, we are at times creating the exact type of religiosity that the prophets from the Axial Age were trying to get rid of.

Armstrong follows the progress of the religious development of the four Axial peoples side by side, charting their progress, sometimes in fits and starts. According to the author, we have never surpassed the insights of the Axial Age. Each generation since has tried to adapt the original insights to their particular situation and that is our task today.

The following themes are apparent throughout:

1. God is made in man's image rather than the other way around. He is a projection of man's cultural needs, changing as culture evolves, and as new charismatic leaders present themselves.

2. Each tradition wrestled with Mythos versus Logos - the more mystical, spiritual, and tolerant approach versus the one more analytical and theological. An emphasis shift from a mystical, unknowable God to a more personal God has its advantages, but tends to allow intolerance and fundamentalism.

3. When concentrating on the similarities as to how humanity has always searched for God, they are more obvious than the differences.

Armstrong started life with a conservative faith which has changed over the years to a more liberal and mystical one in her quest for God, sans dogma. Many Christians have lived a similar scenario, yet maintained their original beliefs. This book is not a polemic, and I think most people of any faith would not be offended by her approach. In "The Great Transformation," Armstrong is her usual scholarly and convincing self, with insightful comments on every page that would be hard to find elsewhere. "Religion is like a raft," she has said, explaining the Buddhist view of it. "Once you get across the river, moor the raft and go on. Don't lug it with you if you don't need it any more."

158 of 167 people found the following review helpful.
Profound And Moving
By John D. Cofield
The Great Transformation is a history of the Axial Age, the period in the approximate first millenium B.C.E. when nearly all of our present day religions and philosophies were born. The Axial Age was a time when religion and philosophy evolved from the mere worship of something out of fear it could hurt you to a true ethical, compassionate belief. Karen Armstrong is a brilliant writer and thinker, and this is her finest work.

In a series of well organized and clearly developed chapters Armstrong traces the development of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Greek philosophy, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Armstrong provides context for the developments of these thought systems by succinctly describing the troubles of the time: invasions, epidemics, and the ebb and flow of cultural diffusion and change. She then relates these problems to the developing thought systems and shows how their influence penetrated the minds of the seers, prophets, and philosophers who were at work throughout the turmoil. Most interestingly, she interconnects the ideas with each other, showing how similar circumstances and contacts created philosophies and religions which shared the same concerns and often advocated many of the same solutions.

The Great Transformation should be on the shelves of all who seek to better understand the origins of so much of our human cultural heritage.

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful.
The Roots of Religion
By Dr. Richard G. Petty
This is an outstandingly interesting book, even if you do not agree with every one of Karen Armstrong's conclusions.

The great German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers first proposed the idea of an "Axial period" that ran from approximately 800 to 200 BCE. During this time all the fundamental creations that underlie our current civilization came into being. It was also during this time that four of the world's great religions and philosophical traditions emerged: Hinduism and Buddhism in India; Confucianism and Taoism in China; Monotheism in Israel, that eventually gave expression to Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and rationalism in Greece. Some experts - including Jaspers - included a fifth: Zoroastrianism in Persia. Most scholars now consider that Zoroastrianism emerged before the Axial period, so it is discussed in this book, but is not one of the four great strands.

Following Jaspers' lead, Karen Armstrong credits this six to seven hundred year period as the turning point in the development of human spiritual consciousness. She describes these developments as a reaction to political disintegration and religious intolerance that lead large numbers of people to turn away from their customary systems of ritual and worship, and instead to search for and to create new systems based on justice, compassion and love. This search provided the catalyst for major transformations in religious culture.

Though she is a scholar, Karen writes a clear and easily digestible account about the spiritual heart of each of these religious doctrines, and shows that they all have some things in common: primarily the need for compassion and love in overcoming violence, hatred and selfishness. All the great sages of the time from Socrates to some of the Old Testament prophets, the mystics of the Upanishads and the Buddha taught the central importance of personal responsibility and self-criticism, which had to be followed by practical. effective action.

Although a great step forward, the emergence of the ethics and religions of the Axial period was far from perfect. As the most glaring example, women were largely excluded from a significant place in most of these systems.

Karen's approach also begs another question: did religions emerge as a reaction to the times or had some people reached a point in their development where they were able to receive Divine guidance?

It is easy to see many of the parallels between the Axial period and the turmoil of today. Perhaps a return to the ethos of the time, in an evermore interconnected world, armed now with the cognitive and emotional insights of the last two thousand years, might help provide the guidelines for another great step forward along the spiritual path. And a way of dealing with some of the problems that threaten to engulf us.

As Karen Armstrong say, "In the last resort, "love" and "concern" will benefit everybody more than self-interested or shortsighted policies."

This book makes for absorbing and inspirational reading, and shows the importance of returning to the roots of our different faiths.

Highly recommended.

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? Download Ebook Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda, by John Keegan

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In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence.

In his characteristically wry and perceptive prose, Keegan offers us nothing short of a new history of war through the prism of intelligence. He brings to life the split-second decisions that went into waging war before the benefit of aerial surveillance and electronic communications. The English admiral Horatio Nelson was hot on the heels of Napoleon’s fleet in the Mediterranean and never knew it, while Stonewall Jackson was able to compensate for the Confederacy’s disadvantage in firearms and manpower with detailed maps of the Appalachians. In the past century, espionage and decryption have changed the face of battle: the Japanese surprise attack at the Battle of the Midway was thwarted by an early warning. Timely information, however, is only the beginning of the surprising and disturbing aspects of decisions that are made in war, where brute force is often more critical.

Intelligence in War is a thought-provoking work that ranks among John Keegan’s finest achievements.

• Sales Rank: #943788 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-28
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.48" h x 1.36" w x 6.50" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 387 pages

From Publishers Weekly
According to Keegan (The First World War), there is a good reason why "military intelligence" is so often described as an oxymoron: inflicting and enduring destruction often has no room for reflection, just retaliation. But retaliation tends toward attrition, and attrition is expensive; thought, for Keegan, offers a means of reducing war's price, taking commanders and armies inside enemy decision-action loops, helping identify enemy weakness, warning of enemy intentions or disclosing enemy strategy. Keegan offers a series of case studies in the operational significance of intelligence, ranging from Admiral Nelson's successful pursuit of the French fleet in 1805, through Stonewall Jackson's possession of detailed local knowledge in his 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, to the employment of electronic intelligence in the naval operations of WWI and its extension and refinement during WWII. For that conflict, Keegan expands his analysis, discussing intelligence aspects of the German invasion of Crete, the U.S. victory at Midway and the defeat of the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. To balance an account heavily focused on technology, he incorporates a chapter on the importance of human intelligence in providing information on the Nazi V-weapons. Keegan concludes with a discussion of post-1945 military intelligence that stresses the difference between a Cold War in which the central targets of intelligence gathering were susceptible to concrete, scientific methods, and more recent targets that, lacking form and organization, require penetration through understanding. That paradigm shift in turn is part of Keegan's general argument that intelligence data does not guarantee success. This book shows that the British need not have lost on Crete; that the American victory at Midway was not predetermined. At a time when armed forces tout the "information revolution," Keegan writes in the belief that the outcomes of war are ultimately the result of fighting.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
"Results in war, in the last resort, are an affair of body, not mind; of physical force, not plans or intelligence." This is renowned military historian Keegan's analysis of 1942's Battle of Midway. Discounting the value of military intelligence is just one of the paradoxical conclusions drawn in the eight case studies comprising this work. With his usual shrewdness about the highly confusing world of war, Keegan subtly weaves into his narrative the disruptions that seem to hex intelligence collection and analysis. In only one case does Keegan grant primacy to a commander's use of intelligence--Stonewall Jackson's 1862 campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. In all of the other examples, Keegan ascribes the outcome to another factor: at Midway, it was luck; during the 1941 invasion of Crete, it was "berserk" German determination. Within each episode, Keegan uncovers a communication breakdown, an analytical mistake, or a tactical blunder that turned even golden military information to dross. Throughout, Keegan projects a deep empathy for battle victims, who were swept away by the thousands. This humane sensibility, on display in book after book, explains why the author is the most popular, and perhaps the best, contemporary writer of military history. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“[Keegan] brings to the literature of war a deep affection for revealing details, and it’s clear that he loves to be surprised by what he learns. His pleasure animates the material for his readers.”
—National Post

“Keegan has not set out to debunk intelligence. Rather he has sought to place the clandestine underbelly of war in perspective, to wrest it from the popular imagination as some sort of entertaining shortcut to victory.”
—The New York Times

“Read Keegan’s Intelligence in War for its wonderful narration and genuine insights into the details of intelligence operations.”
—The Globe and Mail


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Brian Nichols
Outstanding work.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Well reasoned explanation
By Jerry Saperstein
This history is well timed in the sense that it appeared at a time when certain people were attempting to spread a myth that the United States should have been able to avoid the tragedy of 9/11. Keegan, a military historian of the first tier, examines the full scope of military intelligence and its ramifications.
He convincingly demonstrates that accurate intelligence has almost always been unavailable - and even in the few instances it was available, its impact has not been the decisive element.
Keegan examine Lord Nelson's 73 day quest for the French fleet, relying upon merchants, captured sailors, ambassadors and just about everyone else for information. In the end, it was Nelson's experience and intuition that brought his fleet to battle with the French.
Perhaps his most telling example concerns the Battle of Midway. The Americans had exceptional intelligence and yet, as Keegan shows, the American victory resolved itself to four minutes of good fortune. So it goes in war.
Yes, some governments spend millions and billions on gathering intelligence. No, it is very rare for that intelligence gathering process to produce sucessful results as a norm. War is a business where secrets are not given up easily and are difficult to ferret out.
Keegan maintains that in the end, intelligence isn't a handmaiden to victory in battle, but perhaps a cousin once removed.
Jerry

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
Seems haphazard
By heinertx
Not Keegan's best effort. It felt like I was reading parts and pieces from other works that may or may not be turned into full books. Love his work but this is for completists only.

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