An attempt to uphold the superiority of the Koran, but the reader may not find God in the process.
Fragmented defense of the Koran as the fulfillment of Jewish and Christian scripture, and as a prophetic authority on matters of science and nature.
Utilizing numerous and often lengthy passages from the Koran, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament, as well as quotations from many modern authorities, Gad purports to help the reader search for God. Gad begins with a brief critique of Darwin’s theories and seems to refute evolution in favor of creationism. However, he then immediately launches into an exploration of Abraham’s descendents, drawing the conclusion that Ishmael, not Isaac, is the legitimate first son of Abraham. By contrasting the Koran with Hebrew and Christian scriptures, he also concludes that Muhammad, not Jesus, is the proper subject of various prophecies. Gad critiques Christian theology and declares that the Christian view of the Triune God is either incorrect or heretical. In a sudden shift halfway through the book, the author begins to extract scientific truths from Koranic scripture. Following selections from the Koran with expositions of various modern scientific findings, Gad intimates that the Koran foretold a number of natural truths which no one could have understood fully in Muhammad’s time. For instance, the Koran states that the earth was made like an egg, and Gad explains that this describes both the shape and layers of the earth. Overall, Gad’s approach is difficult to follow. He moves at a quick pace from one topic to another, rarely ties ideas together and seldom explains his own conclusions. His quotations from various scriptures are sometimes strung along for pages, leaving the reader with little clue as to where he is heading. Finally, God is only tangential to the text-scripture is primary, and even if one considers an exposition on the Koran as a search for God, it is quite an impersonal search in this context.
An attempt to uphold the superiority of the Koran, but the reader may not find God in the process.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-33644-9
Page Count: 174
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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