No comments about Sartre.

3 comments about Teller of Many Tales: The Lives of Laurens van der Post.

1. Frankly, the book is long, costs a lot, and is boring. I would rather spend $20 on learning about Africa than reading a biographer who keeps an odd tone through the book that I would associate more with a polemic than with a balanced biography. I think ok when Joe Campbell died how creepy people came out of the woodword who had been jealous of his fame, and said creepy envy-ridden things about him that some who had an ax to grind took up as fact. I think this author does the same. The minuntae in the book is deadening. This book is in that style, petty gossip that the author inflates into many pages to slap a high price on the volume. I would suspect this book would not have been published if it didn't play on so much gossip. I would reather reaad Van der Post's books firsthand and decide for myself



2. This is how the book leaves one. As a lifelong admirer of van der Post (I was even fortunate enough to briefly meet him once in New York and attend his lectures on the denigration of the feminine since the time of St. Paul, as well as the Bushman of the Kalahari myths), I have to admit I found his personal life to be quite shocking, especially his treatment of women close to him, and even more so, his total neglect of his illegitimate children, and that of his own son, John, who died prematurely in adulthood.

   I found the many lies surprising, but was relieved that not everything was a lie, and many of the the truths in his writing stand the test of veracity. Even if some of the Bushman myths which he claimed to have learned directly from them were myths that he read in the books of Bleek, they still are very beautiful. Most surprising is that the Mantis is not to be found in Bushman cosmology. Wherever did van der Post find this non-Bushman god whom he accredits to their culture?

   Oh well, he seemed to have a capacity to attract great and life-long love from others which one wonders if he could ever have returned in such proportion. His relationship with Jung was not so close that he should have called himself "Jung's messenger boy."

   Above all, I feel a deep sympathy for his extremely loyal wife, who was kept much in the dark about his goings on. Although she intuited there was another woman (though not that they had had a 30 years affair, or that there were many others as well), and knew of at least one of his illegitimate children, she said she was not jealous. If you read her autobiography, "The Way Things Happen," the last two chapters actually written by Laurens van der Post as she had fallen into her dementia by then), much is revealing. For instance, she notes that she was aware of her first husband's (Jimmy Young) affairs, and states in that book as well that she felt no jealousy, but believed that was in the area of his reckoning with himself and was his own business. Her book is a fine one, from her childhood in India, her great love of her second husband, her work as a playwright and then after six month's study at the Jungian Institute in Zurich, her work as a not fully trained psychoanalyst (she had some professional meetings with Prince Charles, while Diana, Princess of Wales, had several sessions with van der Post's close friend and analyst, Dr. Alan McGlashan), up to her old age.

   Unlike van der Post, Jung was honest with his wife about Toni Wolff. They all learned to live with it. But then, he was not a habitual liar. Ingaret thought of her husband as "a great man." I beg to disagree. Though I respect him for staying with her during her last years when she had sunk into dementia, instead of 'ducking out,' as he had a tendency to quickly do in sticky situations.

   Jung was perhaps a great man. In my opinion, van der Post excelled in his non-fiction works. I do not think he reached any great heights in his books of fiction. But over and above all his faults and problems, he gave us the African myths one way or the other. And this helped some of us with our lives.




3. I found this book difficult to put down. It is very well written and impressively researched. The light it throws onto the times, places and people spanned by the life of Laurens van der Post are valuable indeed. But it simply is not a do-it-justice, adequately balanced biography. Even if 80 percent of the prevarication, lying, [misunderstandings], and hypocricy claimed by Jones against Van der Post is true, it simply doesn't cut it for any serious biographer to essentially attribute the profound impact of such a high quality literary figure, and half-century-long luminary, almost entirely to some quality of "charm" or honed talent to [mislead]... even some of the most sophisticated human beings of his time. Jones, of course, may deny that characterization of his work, but such is clearly the underlying impact of his ill-balanced treatment of Van der Post's life. To put it another way: to basically attribute the remarkable insightfulness, giftedness and international impact of Laurens van der Post's long and illustrious life so largely to a sort of hypnotic deceptiveness (The rather glib, satirical - or is it sarcastic? - title of the book advertizes just such a seriously limiting thesis) comes close to producing a biography that borders on a species of shallowness, even if the author claims that he wrote the book largely to disclose these realities. Of course Laurens had serious flaws, and I sincerely thank Mr. Jones for opening my eyes more fully to that fact; but to make such faultiness, serious as some of it is, the unrelenting theme of an "authorized biography" (see Foreword) on the life of a man as complex and obviously outstanding as Van der Post, is not to write a biography fully worthy of the art and science of biography writing, at least as I and many others might understand it. There are literally miriads of places to which one could go in Jones' book that call for alternative conjectures about the "facts," true or not, that Jones cites; alternative, that is, to Jones'monotonously predictable conclusion, page after page, that Laurens was invariably the consummate international and personal con man. But the tasteless, anecdotal quip Janet Campbell, Laurens' housekeeper, claims to have made to a "very old" Van der Post, that is quoted in the first sentence of the Introduction to Jones' book is quite damningly pace-setting for the book as a whole: That Laurens should remember he was, after all "just a farm boy from the Karoo." Is that really all he was? It's no wonder such a characterization is said to have "incensed" him. Once the book is read, it is almost inescapable to conclude that this describes pretty much how Jones would like to reduce the life of Laurens van der Post. And if a reader accepts the clear implication of this kind of "logic" (a species of implied hubris expressed elsewhere in the book) there'd be a lot of people who'd have to be stricken from the rosters of the great among us: Abraham Lincoln (back woods, log cabin, and all), Jesus Christ ("Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?") and William Shakespeare (son of a merchant in a diminutive village). All in all, it seems to me that J.D.F. Jones' approach to the on-balance greatness of the life of Laurens van der Post, is archtypical of the malady crouching in the spirit of contemporary, civilized humanity (mine included!); the malady Laurens van der Post himself so insightfully exposed: that developed human beings today are so "civilized," so "objectivistic," so "rationalistic," so starry-eyed about the capacities of research that we are left virtually untrusting of, and therefore unmoved by our own intuitive, spiritual and "primitive" powers. We have therefore become largely incapable of perceiving, or have lost much of our capacity to experience anything except that which we are able to skeptically and even cynically squint at through eyes only part way open. This, I'm afraid, describes much of the reason for J.D.F. Jones' inadequate, or should I say, truncated but brilliantly elaborate biographical "tale" of the life of Sir Laurens van der Post.

No comments about Nietzsche.

No comments about On Russell (Wadsworth Philosophers Series).

No comments about Roger Bacon's Letter: Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art And Nature And the Nullity of Magic.

3 comments about Alain Locke: Faith And Philosophy (Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions).

1. Before discussing the merits of this book it is in order give a brief description of Alain Locke.
   
   Locke was born in Philadelphia in 1885, and studied philosophy at Harvard. In 1907 he received a Rhodes scholarship enabling him to study at Oxford. While in Europe he traveled and came into contact with the philosophers Brentano and Meinong. It is notable that he was the first, and until 1960 the only, black Rhodes scholar. Upon his return he secured a position at
   Howard University, Washington. He received his PhD in Philosophy (with a dissertation on axiology) from Harvard in 1918.
   His work The New Negro: An Interpretation of Negro Life (1925) established him as (one of) the main forces of the Harlem Renaissance.
   
   Alhtough his impression on academic philosophy has been slight (e.g. the 10 volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy has not one mention of Alain Locke). However, through his writing and lecturing he managed to influence american life, and secure a place in the history of the Harlem Renaissance and the american civil rights movement.
   
   He was born into a Christian (Episcopalian) family but converted to the Bahá'i religion in 1918. Attracted by that religions teachings on the equality of races, he involved himself in the american community's Race Amity Conferences and other activities aimed at achieving equality between the races. His overall involvement in the baha'i community was however less than enthusiastic. Partly, this seems to have been due to the bahá'i-community's periodic inability to implement its lofty ideals into practice.
   
   Locke's identity as a bahá'i has been unknown or at least unacknowledged by earlier biographers and researchers.
   
   Turning to the book itself:
   In addition to being a biography of Alain Locke this book's major contribution is to bring out and establish Locke's identity as a bahá'i.
   Regarded purely as a biography the book is more than acceptable (approx. 4 stars) and enjoyable. Contrary to another amazon-reviewer, I think that the author solves the biographer's perpetual problem of choosing between a thematic and a chronological presentation in an admirable way. The chapters are thematically held together which breaks up the 'cover-to-cover'-chronology of the book (the reader is taken back and forth in time as the books proceeds), but within each chapter the chronology is maintained. This structure contributes to the readability of the book. In addition, it enables the reader to focus only on those aspects of Locke's life that interest her. Given that this book is not simply a biography, but aims to show the influence of Locke's association with the Bahá'i religion on his intellectual output, such a structure is without doubt preferable.
   
   The book is, I guess, attractive to two, not necessarily distinct, groups of readers:
   1. Those with an antecedent interest in Locke or the Harlem Renaissance. To this group, the book provides new insights and information about the extent and nature of Locke's involvement with the Bahá'i religion.
   2. Those with an antecedent interest in the Bahá'i religion. To this group the book provides information about a, then-prominent, member of the bahá'i faith who, for strange reasons, is largely unknown in the contemporary literature on the bahá'i religion.
   In addition, and more interestingly, Buck aspires to show how Locke's philosophical work and the Bahá'i teachings influenced one another, and in this way extract the basics of a 'bahá'i philosophy'(p.6 and pp.187ff). In this respect the author completely fails. The problem is not that what he says is wrong. He doesn't say anything of substance on the subject at all. (One suspects that this is to a large extent due to ignorance of philosophy on the part of the author.) This still leaves a pretty good biography of Locke's life, but the fact that he at several places promises to give such an account but fails to deliver detracts from the overall score.



2. Dr. Buck does a great, incredibly thorough job of presenting a biography of Alain Locke. Citations to nearly every factual statement in the book are provided. Locke was a giant of the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American community, and of the race unity movement. Yet he is poorly understood and often not even known at all. Buck proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Locke was indeed a genuine Baha'i for most of his life. However Buck shows that Locke was an enigmatic, aloof, almost paradoxical Baha'i. My only criticisms of the book relate to its format and editing. The book is not presented as a chronological biography, but rather is divided into chapters, which are then divided into subsections. This separation of various periods of his life/activities, breaks the flow of the book and causes the book at times not to read well. Certain topics are repeated several times. But on the whole this definitely covers what the author wanted to do, i.e. describe Locke's spiritual life and philosophy, especially his Baha'i life. It's definitely required reading for anyone seriously studying Locke, anyone studying the history of the American Baha'is in the early 20th century, or anyone just interested in reading a biography of a Baha'i.



3. Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy (Los Angeles: Kalimát Press, 2005). With an introductory essay by Professor Leonard Harris of Purdue University (today's leading scholar on Alain Locke).
   
   One of the towering figures of African American history is Alain Locke -- the first black Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Howard University, "Dean" of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke was the most important African American intellectual between W. E. B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here are the opening paragraphs in Chapter One of Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy:
   
   *************
   Chapter One
   INTRODUCTION
   
   Alain Locke democratized American culture and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement. During the Jim Crow era of American history, when civil rights were white rights, Locke was the genius behind the Harlem Renaissance, which David Levering Lewis aptly characterized as "Civil Rights by Copyright."1 Locke edited the monumental anthology, The New Negro (1925), hailed as the first national book of African America.2 In so doing, Locke ingeniously used culture as a strategy for ameliorating racism and for winning the respect of powerful white elites as potential agents for social and political transformation. Awakening the black masses to their noble African heritage and instilling pride in unique black contributions to American life, Locke may well be regarded as "the Martin Luther King of African American culture."3
   
   Without Locke, there may not have been a Martin Luther King. The New Negro movement, for which Locke was the chief architect and spokesman, was singularly responsible for inculcating and cultivating the requisite group consciousness and solidarity necessary for the mobilization of African Americans during the Civil Rights era. As Martin Luther King was a man of faith, Alain Locke was also. Based on newly discovered documentation of his conversion in 1918, we can now say with certainty that Locke was member of the Bahá'í Faith for over three decades.
   
   As the youngest independent world religion, the Bahá'í Faith was clearly a leader in advocating racial harmony and full integration during the Jim Crow era. Through his service on several national Bahá'í committees, Locke was instrumental in organizing a number of "race amity" events. At various times, Locke lent his prestige to the Bahá'í Faith: he publicly identified himself as a Bahá'í in a 1952 issue of Ebony magazine, for example. By virtue of his being both a race leader and a cultural pluralist, Locke is certainly the most important Western Bahá'í to date in terms of his impact on American history and thought. This book documents and demonstrates the synergy between Locke's profession as a philosopher and his confession as a Bahá'í, which confirmed his commitment to racial harmony as a necessary prerequisite to world peace.
   
   *************
        
   Many books have been written about Locke's contributions to black art and culture in the United States. These books have generally ignored the fact that Locke was a Baha'i. Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy fills in that missing link, telling the story of Locke's services to this new world religion from 1918 until his death in 1954.
   
   Based on Buck's painstaking archival research of the Alain Locke Papers at Howard University and elsewhere, this book also describes, for the first time in scholarship, Locke's philosophy of democracy ("A New Americanism") in nine dimensions -- ranging from the concept of "local democracy" all the way to "world democracy." Locke's philosophy of democracy presents a compelling argument for America's world role or "destiny" -- but if and only if America can first solve her own racial crisis at home.
   
   This topic should be of contemporary interest, especially since America is taking such a controversial leadership role in exporting "democracy" in the Middle East and around the world. But what does "democracy" mean? And how does "democracy" compare with Baha'i social principles? Locke has a compelling answer that should interest all Americans.
   
   Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy is richly illustrated with rare historical photographs, including photos of Locke with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ralph Bunche.

1 comments about Auguste Comte: Volume 1: An Intellectual Biography (Auguste Comte Intellectual Biography).

1. Very good summary. Pickering captures the compelxity of the intellectual traditions that affected the formation of the Comtean philosophy. She shows the continuity that stems from the ambiguous legacy of the Revolution. But, at the same time, by concentrating on the continuity of his thought, Pickering does not seem to fully account for the discrepancy over which some of the disciples of Comte had to break from the master. Maybe in her next volume, she would make a good case of it.

1 comments about Pierre Bourdieu: Education and Training (Continuum Library of Educational Thought).

1. This book is excellent. It is particularly helpful for those who may be only slightly familar with Bourdieu's work. Its value is that is examines the corpus of Bourdieu's work and trains the theory on education. Last, it is extremely accessible.
   
   Helen Foster

1 comments about C.s. Lewis The Story Teller (Trail Blazers).

1. Watching the film 'Shadowlands', or seeing the play of the same name, gives you the impression that Lewis was remote and awkward around people.

   Reading this fine youth biography shows you that underneath he had an innate sense of wonder that was stifled by his upbringing and work. It found an outlet in his books for children and camaraderie with the 'Inkspots'.

   This is a revealing biography because it is written for young people. A suitable vehicle for finding out about the author of the Narnia Chronicles! I found it much less precious than other books on Lewis - probably because this was written by a fellow native Northern Irishman, rather than a fan.

   It also wrecks several pompous academic careers by including a letter from Lewis to a young girl, explaining what each of the Narnia books is about.

   Moving, heartwarming and fun.

1 comments about The Heidegger-Jaspers Correspondence (1920-1963) (Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences.).

1. The history of 20th century German philosophy can be neatly summed up in three words: Husserl, Heidegger and Jaspers. They were the giants of the rich philosophical tradition and most of 20the century thought is influenced by them, either as followers who adapted their thought to other paths or as opponents, deriding what was seen as a preponderence of metaphysics over "clear thinking."

   The emphasis on Heidegger in recent years has expanded into an investigation of his personal life, intertwined as it was with the Nazi regime during the '30s. We have access to the Arendt-Jaspers correspondence, but only get to know Heidegger second-hand. That is why the release of the Heidegger-Jaspers correspondence is a tresure for every student of philosophy. Not only do we gain valuable insights into the workings of each author's conception of existentialism, but we also get to soak in the atmosphere of German university life, and its view of scholarship, so different from our own universities today, which now serve as little else than extensions of high school.

   The letters also give us the opportunity to see how the Heidegger-Japsers friendship fared over the years. (The letters are from 1920 to 1963.) During the '20s, the two are very close and share critiques of each others philosphy. During the '30s, with the rise of the Nazis, we see a cooling off due to the fact Heidegger sides with the Nazis and Jaspers, whose wife was Jewish,was appalled by what was happening to Germany. Very few letters are exchanged during the period from 1936 to 1948, when Heidegger, by now defanged by the Allied occupation, once again ventures into the public eye. The letters of this perios lack the warmth of the letters from the '20s, with Heidegger wishing to forget what happened in the '30s and Jaspers wanting an explanation.

   This is an unforgettable foray into the livers anf thought of two giants of twentieth century philosophy, and, as such, is a must for every philosophical library.