Category Archives: Book Reviews

BOOK: “The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded” by Dana Sawyer

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The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclinedThe Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclined by Dana Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Release Date: July 9, 2024

The good news is that this book does a thorough, clear, and balanced job of discussing Perennial Philosophy along a number of dimensions including metaphysics, psychology, theology, and aesthetics. The bad news is that it can lead one to believe there IS NO Perennial Philosophy, just a hodge-podge of (often disparate) assumptions about the grand metaphysical questions of life, the universe, and everything, assumptions that are usually Eastern, mystical, or both and which appeal to the kind of person who likes to say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” but which are all over the place, intellectually speaking. We learn more about the varied metaphysical perspectives that can be lumped under rubric Perennial Philosophy, than we learn of any internally consistent set of beliefs which distinguish the Philosophy from others. Sawyer does acknowledge that there is not a unified worldview that is Perennial Philosophy and that, instead, one must think in terms of “family resemblance.” The problem is that Perennial Philosophy displays the kind of family resemblance seen in a foster home. One can believe in a god or not, believe in a soul / persistent self or not, one can hold any number of beliefs about time, causation, creation, and other aspects of metaphysics. Sawyer does solidly distinguish Perennial Philosophy from Materialism, but it’s not clear why we needed it, given we already had various permutations of Idealism.

The book does provide a lot of food-for-thought, if often frustratingly so. The most important thing it does is lay out the various questions at the fore of Perennial Philosophy, how they’ve been addressed by different thinkers, and the crux of discord.

I did find myself disturbed by the arguments on occasion. A prime example is when Sawyer writes about students who describe themselves as non-spiritual but who enjoy going hiking. Because Sawyer couches the experiences that are had on a good hike in spiritual terms, he believes the students are wrong to describe themselves as “non-spiritual.” However, it’s far from clear why they need to twist their interpretations into line with his worldview. I suspect that his “non-spiritual” students, like me, see in “spiritual” types a need to escape the surly bonds of nature, to have magic exist in their worlds, something above and beyond nature. I see “spiritual” people as having a craving like the proverbial true-believer / flood victim whose neighbors come by in a truck and a boat to rescue him (and then rescue services come by with a helicopter,) but he turns them all down because “God Will Save Me!” Then he dies and goes to heaven and berates God for letting him drown, to which God says, “I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What do you want from me?” Well, he wanted a divine golden light to levitate him not some mundane solution based in the natural world; he wanted magic, rapturous rescue.

If you are interested in the various debates between Materialism and Idealism, this book is well worth reading, and if you describe yourself as “Spiritual, but not religious,” you’ll probably really love it.

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BOOKS: “Ali and Nino” by Kurban Said

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Ali and Nino: A Love StoryAli and Nino: A Love Story by Kurban Said
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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I read this book as travel literature for a trip to Azerbaijan and was pleased that it both met my needs as travel literature (i.e. offering insight into the local culture(s),) and it turned out to be an engrossing story, as well. You may have caught that “turned out to be.” It’s true that the first one-third to half of the book is a slow-burn on the story front. Through those early chapters, the book is the character-driven, plotless novel one frequently sees among literary fiction. Don’t get me wrong, it is still interestingly written and engaging (if you’re a literary fiction reader,) and it definitely met my needs for travel literature. But just as I’d resigned myself to this character-driven literary fiction formulation, it shifted into being a compelling and even action-packed story.

This is a tale of star-crossed lovers but set in the Caucuses in the WWI era (i.e. the time of the Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman Empire was in its violent death throes.) Unlike Romeo and Juliet, in which the lovers came from feuding clans that were culturally quite similar, cultural divergence is the crux of the matter for Ali and Nino. While the families of the two kids get along fine enough, Nino is from an aristocratic Georgian family of progressive Western (and Christian) proclivities. The protagonist, Ali, is also from an upper-crust family, but they are of a much more conservative Muslim bent. While Ali, himself, is an educated and moderate personality and somewhat of a bridge between the old world Persian mindset of his family and the liberal European one in which he was educated, he has friends and family that it would not be unfair to call fanatics. So, while the families bless the union, it is ill-fated because the worldviews of Ali and Nino make it so there is no place they can both be happy living, except a Baku that is being contested by the Ottoman Empire and a Russia in the midst of its own transmutation. In Persia, Nino is a soulless possession who is not allowed to interact with anyone but Ali, eunuch and female servants, and her own family when they visit. On the other hand, Ali can’t bear to go to Europe or America, where he’d be so far out of his element. So, they are stuck with a Baku besieged by multiple entities.

The writer made a couple of unconventional but clever choices that I found to be brilliant. I’d highly recommend this book for readers of literary fiction and / or historical fiction.

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BOOKS: “The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic” by Jean-Manuel Roubineau

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The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the CynicThe Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic by Jean-Manuel Roubineau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This is a translation of a French book about the life and philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic. It’s a thin volume, as there is much that’s unknown about the life of Diogenes, and the dearth of surviving texts means that some of what is believed about Diogenes and Cynic philosophy maybe corrupted by the reports of detractors. I learned a great deal from reading this book, but not because I learned much new about Diogenes, himself. The colorful anecdotes from his life have been extensively discussed.

With respect to what I did learn, it largely fell into three categories. First, I gained insight into the context and environment in which Diogenes lived. Second, I discovered that many of the stories of Diogenes’ life are far less certain than we have been led to believe through the presentations of them in so many books. For example, we know Diogenes was exiled from his native Sinope in relation to a scheme involving currency debasement. This is often straightforwardly stated as “Diogenes was a counterfeiter,” but Roubineau shows that we don’t know much (if anything) about the degree to which Diogenes was involved (i.e. whether he was mastermind, accomplice, or an unwitting pawn.) Third, I benefited from the comparing and contrasting of Cynic philosophy with that of predecessors (e.g. Socratics) and successors (e.g. Stoics,) and – in a few cases – comparisons between Diogenes and other Cynics.

The book consists of four chapters. The first is a discussion of what is known about Diogenes as a historical figure. The second focuses on the Cynics views on economy, wealth, and related ideas. The third explores the Cynic view of the human body and related topics like sex, pleasure, and pursuit of health and well-being. The last chapter considers Diogenes as a teacher and the Cynic approach to practicing philosophy.

I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in philosophy.


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ESSAY: “Tradition and the Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot

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Tradition and the Individual Talent: An EssayTradition and the Individual Talent: An Essay by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read for free at the Poetry Foundation

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While this is a controversial essay and I don’t accept it wholesale, myself, I would wholeheartedly recommend it as required reading for poets (and other artists.) What is Eliot’s controversial thesis? It’s that poetry should be less about the poet. That broad and imprecise statement can be clarified by considering two ways in which Eliot would make poetry less about the poet. First, Eliot proposes that poets should be in tune to the historic evolution of their art and — importantly — should not be so eager to break the chain with the past masters. He’s not saying a poet needs to be a literary historian, but rather that one be well-read in the poetry of the past. Second, Eliot advocates that a poet avoid packing one’s poetry with one’s personality, and – instead – let one’s personality dissolve away through the act of creation.

A quote from the essay may help to clarify — Eliot says, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality.”

One can imagine the accusations of pretension and dogmatism that Eliot received in 1919 from the mass of poets who were moving full speed ahead into poetry that was suffused with autobiography, was avant-garde, and which was free of meter, rhyme and other compositional elements that had once been seen as the defining characteristics of poetry.

I don’t see this essay as being the map to our new home, but rather as the catalyst of a conversation that could move us to a more preferable intermediary location. I have, too often, picked up a collection by a young poet that was entirely autobiographical and (also, too often) of the “everybody hates me, nobody loves me, I think I’ll go eat worms” variety of wallowing in personal feelings. And I always think, when I want to read something depressing, I’ll read something from someone who has lived tragedy — e.g. a Rwandan refugee, not something from a twenty-four-year-old MFA student at some Ivy League school.

So, yeah, maybe we could use more connection to the past and a bit less autobiographical poetry from people who haven’t lived a novel-shaped life.

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BOOKS: “Inner Space Philosophy” by James Tartaglia

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Inner Space Philosophy: Why the Next Stage of Human Development Should Be Philosophical, Explained Radically (Suitable for Wolves)Inner Space Philosophy: Why the Next Stage of Human Development Should Be Philosophical, Explained Radically by James Tartaglia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Release Date: July 1, 2024

This is a strange book, and I suspect it will be mostly loved or loathed, with relatively few people in that usually broad spectrum of indifference. It’s not strange in its message (which is an argument for philosophical Idealism and a metaphysics consistent, therewith,) but rather it’s odd in its delivery. It mixes fact and fiction, often in an ill-defined way, and it’s loaded with fourth wall breaking self-introspection. I enjoyed reading the book, found it amusing at times, and received a lot of food-for-thought from it (but not without some frustration, particularly around not knowing which were true stories. I suspect this was intentional. Philosophical Idealism being a notion that what matters is our internal [i.e. mental / emotional] experience and that that experience may not have much to do with any external “reality” [and, to the degree it does, that we have limited capacity to know how.] Therefore, it makes sense that a book taking such a stance would eschew the importance of external world “truths” in favor of building mental models that have pedagogic value regardless of whether the reflect external world happenings. The book boldly puts its money where its mouth is in that regard.)

It should also be said that part of the reason for the book’s unusual approach was to make a hard break from the usual mode of philosophical writing, which is often pedantic, pretentious, and elitist. That’s because, beyond the metaphysics it’s prescribing, the book is also proposing a need for philosophy to be a broadly human endeavor – approachable by all, rather than the domain of an elite who communicate in their own special jargon-laden language and argue over minutiae irrelevant to everyday living. Like a number of books of recent years, it’s proposing that we need a philosophy of life that helps us live better lives, rather than a philosophy of semantics and elaborate logic that helps “professional philosophers” score points in a game of philosophy.

A few things I liked about this book, include: a.) it didn’t treat the Western Philosophical tradition as the sum total of philosophy (as many books have.) For example, it explored Akan and Buddhist philosophy alongside the ancient and modern philosophy of the West. b.) it gives special emphasis to Cynicism, a school of philosophy that is usually disregarded as the domain of a few madmen of ancient Greece. There is a chapter imagining Trinidad’s Gambo Lai Lai as a Cynic of the modern world. c.) I liked that it used the last chapter as a way to review in a way that was fun and echoed the approach of the Socratic dialogue. It pitted a scholar in favor of the ideas of the book against what might best be thought of as a mainstream academic philosopher (though he was also an opponent of the book.) This allowed the author to review the book’s ideas in a way that can only be experienced through a clash of ideas. (And it offered some levity, as well.)

I got a lot out of reading this book. If you can cope with your belief in the importance of factual happenings being challenged, you too will probably enjoy it.

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BOOKS: “One Hundred Poems of Kabir (1915)” Translated by Rabindranath Tagore

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One Hundred Poems of KabirOne Hundred Poems of Kabir by Kabir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Kabir was a fifteenth century Indian poet and mystic. This collection was translated by the Bengali Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, and Tagore’s stylistic imprint is felt in these poems. The poems are overwhelmingly of a mystic / spiritual nature. Kabir was non-sectarian but extremely oriented towards mystic belief. He references the Koran and Vedas alike, but is more likely to communicate in secular, if mystical, terms.

How much the godly emphasis works for the reader will vary greatly. For me it was a bit excessive, often reading more like prayers than poems, but your results may vary.

The only thing I found actually disturbing was the repeated romanticization of sati, a practice in use during Kabir’s lifetime in which widows would be burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyre. Kabir repeatedly writes of sati as if it was always a completely voluntary act of raw passion and connection and was never motivated by being old and destitute (not to mention being societally pressured or, even, physically forced into it.)

The poems are well composed and engaging, and if you can get past the periodic sati propaganda, it’s a pleasant, almost euphoric, read.

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BOOKS: “Constantine, Vol. 1: The Spark and the Flame” by Ray Fawkes & Jeff Lemire

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Constantine, Vol. 1: The Spark and the FlameConstantine, Vol. 1: The Spark and the Flame by Ray Fawkes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This is your basic “race to acquire the components of a multi-part MacGuffin” story line. There is a magic compass that John Constantine is eager to keep out of the hands of a shadowy organization of powerful magicians. Why do we care? First of all, because this is a vaguely but extremely powerful artifact that can rain utter destruction on the world in some ill-defined way. Secondly, because Constantine is just such an intriguing character. Mostly the latter, because the former is ill-defined and doesn’t merit much emotional traction.

That’s mostly what the story is about, but there are various seemingly haphazard story elements (probably too many for the first volume in a series.) This being marketed as a “Volume One” is where much of the book’s problems lie. We pick up pretty much in medias res and when an event occurs that we’re supposed to care about enough to want to see a resolution late in the volume, it’s really hard to care about because it’s been raced through. If you are picking this up after reading the previous series, it’s undoubtedly much more satisfying as a story. Picking up the story with this “Volume 1” is a bit chaotic and lacking in emotional resonance.

That said, John Constantine is one of the most interesting characters in comics and he’s written and drawn well in this book. (Not to mention supporting characters like Papa Midnight.) The story is fast-paced and the broad brushstrokes of it are comprehensible.

If you’ve read the previous Hellblazer / Constantine works, you’ll probably enjoy this volume. Taking it on as a standalone may leave one a bit befuddled.

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BOOKS: “Pawan” by Sorabh Pant

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Pawan: The Flying AccountantPawan: The Flying Accountant by Sorabh Pant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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On one level, the more superficial level, this is a superhero fantasy featuring a Vanara (a supernatural monkey-man creature from Indian mythology,) on another level it’s a political satire that riffs on the geopolitics and the military-industrial complex of India. It’s cleverer as the latter than the former.

The story has some clunkiness, including the occasional hard to follow description and sloppy story elements (e.g. the deus ex machina.) That said, it’s pop genre fiction and with regards sloppy story elements they’re par for the course in superhero fiction. My point being that the fact that it’s amusing and mostly readable means it hits its target, strained credulity and logical inconsistencies aside.

The humor is of the broadest range with occasional laugh-out-loud hilarity, lots of mildly amusing jokes, and a few groan-worthy lines that go down like a lead-balloon. That’s not a terrible ratio for a novel.

If you want to check out a book featuring an Indian mythology-based superhero, and you don’t mind a lot of jokes directed at political and national security apparatus leadership, this book is worth looking into.

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BOOKS: “The Comedians” by Kliph Nesteroff

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The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American ComedyThe Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book presents a fascinating history of standup comedy and the various ancillary activities that comedians have taken on to make ends meet, to advance their careers, and – in a surprising number of cases – to pay for drugs — e.g. from writing to radio and television performances to hosting interview shows. The book’s exploration runs from the days of Vuadville to today’s world of Twitter and podcasts.

The book reveals a great deal about which readers may be unaware. If you, like me, watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and wondered whether the mob was really that involved in the entertainment industry, turns out, they were. In fact, Nesteroff addresses the violence and threats experienced by comedians in a way that is much more explicit than in that TV show. There are tales of early insult comedians running afoul of wiseguys who were in the audience unbeknownst to the comedian. There is even a chapter devoted to the building of Las Vegas to meet certain needs of organized crime, as well as discussion of the mob’s decline (or, perhaps, legitimization) in the industry.

Another discovery that was interesting to me was how wild some of the early comedians were, both in their stage and in their personal lives. There were a number of names that were familiar to me from re-runs of highly censored network television programs. I’d wrongly assumed that these individuals were as bland and wholesome as their on-air personas. Buddy Hackett is a prime example of someone who wasn’t at all what I expected.

It’s remarkable to see how many ups and down standup comedy has had in its relatively short life span — cycles of boom and bust.

If you’re interested in standup comedy and how comedy has progressed as a form of entertainment in America, I’d highly recommend this book.

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“X-Men: Phoenix in Darkness” by Grant Morrison

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X-Men: Phoenix in Darkness by Grant MorrisonX-Men: Phoenix in Darkness by Grant Morrison by Grant Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This volume consists of two different story arcs that are thinly tethered by the character of Jean Grey / Phoenix. The first arc features an elaborate plot by Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto to clear the playing field of major opposition so that he can carry out his plans for world domination / the end of homo sapiens. The second arc is set in a futuristic dystopia and its villain is a dark and twisted variant of Hank McCoy / Beast who sets himself up to control the power of the gene. Interestingly, while Jean Grey / Phoenix plays important roles in both arcs, the stories are by no means centered on her. This keeps the stories from just playing out the will of a ridiculously overpowered character, and instead uses the fact that Phoenix is a threat everlasting, one that can never be allowed to get out of one’s sight.

The volume can be a bit chaotic, with the various time jumps and rather large cast of characters, but I felt it wasn’t too hard to follow the story — even given a bit of Grant Morrison trippiness.

If you’re interested in the X-men, this volume is worth looking into.

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