- Paperback: 254 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (Trade); 1st Mariner Books Ed edition (30 May 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0618002065
- ISBN-13: 978-0618002061
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.9 x 1.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
2,198,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestant > Calvinist
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Synopsis
Ten essays explore a range of social, political, religious, and cultural issues of the present day, sharing the author's thoughts on Darwinism, McGuffey readers, and the religious right.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came to this book fresh from reading her two novels, full of expectation. But it's disappointing. She simply doesn't seem at home in this genre. In an essay form she tries to expand her sharp observations into longer arguments, with definitions and examples, and counter-examples etc. It's not a mode she seems at ease with, and too often her points become sketchy and even amateurish in their polemical style. I winced (because of the awkwardness of it) where it reads weakly like a newspaper column griping about modern America and the loss of its Christian (ie Calvinist) heritage. The book does try sometimes at the theological side of it all, but it wants to have a general readership as well as a scholarly one at ease with the history of ideas and with theology, and it becomes stranded between the two. So if you've not read Robinson yet, I'd advise sticking to the two wonderful novels. 'Gilead' is her most serious working through of the puritan heritage, done not in essay form but in layered narration and meditative prose.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Robinson's furious impatience with drivel and "priggishness" (her essay on Puritans and prigs occupied my students at Providence College for several days) may come from her position at Iowa, which obliges her to listen to bright young things who all think alike. These sentences are often white hot. Her essay into Calvin's thought may be more bold than tempered by long study of the historical problem of Puritanism, but the art with which she constructs the essay -- really a brace of essays -- redeems her purpose, which is to startle the reader out of cant. Lapidary takes on a new meaning when used to describe these pieces: they are not only cunningly arranged and precisely cut, they are hard as diamond.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ms Robinson strikes a quixotic tone but in having a go at social darwinism I think she's tilting at the wrong windmill as this ideology seems largely defunct. I was disappointed that she didn't take on Dennett's views in, say, "Freedom Evolves" as I think that would have made a fascinating essay. The chapters on the reformists and self improvers of the nineteenth century are very interesting but the later essays on the environment and political correctness suffer from the "it seems to me.." approach- so beloved of Prince Charles in his windier moments.
But the true value of the book is in the first chapter where Ms Robinson argues compellingly for genuine academic rigour and a delicious sardonic wit emerges which is sadly absent from the later essays. Finally Ms Robinson disparages latin as a "formidable tongue" but her own dense style might present obstacles to the future generations who I'm confident will be reading her work.
But the true value of the book is in the first chapter where Ms Robinson argues compellingly for genuine academic rigour and a delicious sardonic wit emerges which is sadly absent from the later essays. Finally Ms Robinson disparages latin as a "formidable tongue" but her own dense style might present obstacles to the future generations who I'm confident will be reading her work.
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