Herstoria: A Life Out Of Time by Wendy Salter
In the final pages of her book, author Wendy Salter states, “To believe in the eternal spirit, therefore, we have then to embark on the eternal search for that place from whence we have come and to where we are going.” That’s exactly what Brieze the narrator/protagonist of this four-story novel does. Through each of these episodes in different places and different times she (and we) comes to realize a wonderful connectedness with loved ones past, present and future. I appreciated the overview of each part before “Story One” it helps the reader grasp the scope of the book and anticipate each of its different parts. My favorite was the contemporary encounter of the third section, but I also liked the first; my wife found the second most inspiring — Brieze travels back to spend time with Native American’s in the early 1600s.
But each of the four stories has an important underlying meaning: (the first) things have greater meaning than they initially appear to have; (the second story) nature is part of us and we regain ourselves by losing ourselves in it; (third) a partner in life helps us remember; (and fourth) the future — who we will become — shapes the present just as the past has. But the whole of this book is more than the sum of its parts.
There is a wonderful metaphor that runs throughout Herstoria. The first episode when Brieze slips into the otherworld is a bit like reading an old fashioned fairy tale of a child lost in the woods (“The oak trees here were grand old things, with bulging midriffs and knotted biceps and obscure faces in the bark that grimaced and leered.”) except this is a Jungian world of archetypes and the surprise interpretation, sprung on her husband at the end, is that she wants to have children. The metaphor is that life is like stories, like a book, in which we discover meaning. Here Brieze describes the architecture professor John Tate: “He would shed the dust of time that moved this old tome and make its presence known to her. And she could resist its invitation to take it off the shelf and sit down with it, in intimate union, no more than she could resist the turning of the Earth. She would lift its cover, slowly and carefully and watch it reveal its contents, as God may reveal His mysteries to the world.”
This book is well written. The transitions to different time periods are flawless and Salter’s grasp of historic detail gives each account real credibility. There is a temporary change of point of view in the first part developing the French revolutionary’s family more quickly, that is a little distracting and I found the second story more reflective with fewer scenes of character interaction that would have made it more dramatic. This is quickly rectified with the dynamics of the encounters between Brieze and the deaf man in the third story. The last section is a brief, (somewhat expository-heavy) glimpse into the crystal ball of the distant future. But what I enjoyed most about this book is that we, as readers, are acknowledged to be searchers. When the book is over and Brieze’s journey is complete, we are well on a trail of discovery about our own lives.
Ϫ Ϫ Ϫ Ϫ (4 angels out of four) – John Lehman
E.S. Pete by Arnold Rudnick
This book is great fun. Its fun cover should appeal to kids, fathers, mothers and teachers, each for a different reason. There’s one page in the Foreword explaining ESP: the differences between telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition. That proves all the explanation we need except for a quick qualifier: “Kids are often more psychic than adults because as we grow up, most adults tell us that ESP is impossible—and when people believe something is not possible, they generally stop having the experiences.”
E.S. Pete is a sixth grader who can read minds. He has a heavy crush on Casey but his life is complicated by other things: a substitute teacher, Frank Stein (could it possibly be Frank “N.” Stein?), who Pete intuits wants to rob the cafeteria plus Pete is being victimized by Rodney who wants to think of the answers to a math test and have Pete, across the room, signal him be pulling on his ear if they are correct. How he handles Rodney is pure genius, unfortunately Rodney feels he “owes him one” and now Pete can’t shake him when he only wants to be alone with Casey.
The title is wonderful. The story idea, ingenious, and the writing is laugh-out-loud hilarious: “It was the perfect time to tell her how beautiful she was. How I loved the way her hair surrounded her perfect face. Then ask if she would go to the school dance with me. But instead, I did what most sixth graders would do. ‘You’ve got a booger,’ I lied.” Yet there are some genuine life-enhancing skills offered too. How to interact with the opposite sex, deal with bullies, follow questionable advice from your father and how to recognize and live with the individual abilities we all have.
The story escalates from a possible cafeteria robbery to a bank heist on a field trip. To thwart the culprit the kids need to figure out how to rob a bank. It’s off to the library. That doesn’t turn out to be enough. Prepare for a heart-thumping climax. Best of all, there are more books coming in this clever, clever series.
Want to know how to write a book for a specific audience that will also appeal to teachers and to parents who might buy it as a gift? You don’t have to be a mind reader, just spend a few hours with E.S. Pete and his sixth grade sense. - John Lehman for www.bookreview.com
This book is available from www.amazon.com
SAINTS IN THE CITY by Andie Andrews
I entered this book, with its cover of St. Francis looking on Times Square, feeling some trepidation. I was afraid a “mystical love story that bridges heaven and earth” would be full of clichés and pat Christian answers. The book is anything but. It is an exciting romance full of unexpected twists that keeps a reader quickly turning pages late into the night.
Helen Baldwin is a Baptist preacher’s wife from a poor region of Appalachia. While her ambitious husband is setting up a new church in the city she gets a job at a soup kitchen that includes a table of bitter Vietnam Vets (“…wily elusive, haunting and haunted, fierce and yet fearful of anyone who had not themselves endured the bloodbath that was Vietnam.” Surprise number one, her possessive husband gets her fired. Surprise two, he is having a homosexual affair with his church architect. Surprise three, she falls in love with one of those Vets, a former Vietnam Marine who lives on the edge of sanity. We find out her background (she was molested by her father from the time she was twelve) and understand why it is difficult for her to leave the security of a marriage that got her away from all of that. Now, the day has come for her to face the past and with her new love go back.
The characters are genuine and the emotional dilemma heartfelt. There was one curious touch I found confusing. Ostensibly the narrator is a reincarnated St. Francis of Assisi (who here is a dope addict dying of AIDS), but there are many scenes he would not be privy to in which the author reverts to an omniscient point of view. That proves a bit confusing and inconsistent. And occasionally there are brief passages of heavy handed exposition: “Helen’s compassion was tainted with lust and anger that tempted her to confuse vindication with love.”
But let me add, I am both a Vietnam Vet and someone who years ago spent a night in a San Francisco homeless shelter and all the details this book gives ring true. It is well written, original, imaginative, and the chapter heads are great.
For the most part, this novel will have readers making difficult choices along with Helen Baldwin. Salvation is possible, but never easy—“It [passion] was a truth she was committed to knowing and to experiencing in her lifetime, in her flesh and in her very soul. God help her, she would no longer settle for less.” This book dramatizes how difficult the choices are we have to make.
- John Lehman for www.bookreview.com
This book is available from www.andieandrews.com, amazon.com (paperback or Kindle) or B&N.com. Got to http://www.outskirtspress.com/saintsinthecity for direct links to each.
Conscious Evolution, 1998, by Barbara Marx Hubbard
Let me begin by qualifying what follows. It is less a review, more of a personal reaction. The subject of this book is worth a closer look and more thought than I can give it in a few paragraphs. It is both a readable and a practical guide to the future.
Most people view science as some sort of irrefutable truth, but those that have studied its development realize that it is an explanation that accounts for what we know (mostly through observation of our senses). For example, it is possible to still understand the universe in terms of the sun going around the earth, but the explanation of planetary orbits becomes so complicated that it is much easier to understand it all in terms of the earth’s going around the sun. (It’s like looking at an old-fashioned, hand egg-beater—we can grasp it by the handle and twirl its blades, or hold one of the blades and make the handle rotate).
At one point it was fashionable to think of evolution as members of certain species reaching for an advantage over their peers. Their striving created longer necks, better hearing or faster legs. That was the belief of Lamark. Darwin saw it as the result of random mutation making some more adaptable to a changing environment. There were just too many examples of “losers” among a species winning. It was an easier explanation of the data, even if, as with relinquishing man’s role of being the center of a universe with all the planets revolving around him, it seemed to be somewhat demean us and make us passive in terms of creatures attaining a goal of ultimate perfection. (Check out my “Notes from Underground” entry # 3)
Here Hubbard is saying that mankind is the exception. We have a brain and can determine the direction of our evolution as a society. There’s no reason not to take that explanation as the one of choice—less because of its account for the data, perhaps, more because it provides something we need that we aren’t getting from anywhere else: a plan to make things better. When I was in college I read Abraham Maslow, Teilhard de Chardin, Marshall MacCluhen, Buckminster Fuller, as well as futurist popularizers like Alvin Toffler (Future Shock) that Hubbard alludes to. Up until recently I wondered whatever happened to these people. Many of their principles (self-actualization) had been put into practice; many of their predictions (“the media is the message”) proved correct. But they were all but forgotten in our rush to computerization, militarism and international commerce. Now the economy and the world seem to be falling apart. We need something more, and many of the practical programs and proposals this book makes take on a new urgency.
Barbara Marx Hubbard (who was nominated for Vice President at one time to get her agenda national attention) may not have all the answers, but she certainly gives us the resources to find and implement those we need locally, nationally and internationally. And whether or not we are actively the creators of our own destiny, it is certainly the better choice to believe we are. This is a book you want to buy, spend some time with, go back to. It is a blueprint that weaves the spiritual with the material and the human. A blueprint for our future. —John Lehman
“Freedom without higher consciousness and the compassionate responsibility for others as well as ourselves can become self-centered and destructive. Yet, higher consciousness without freedom to act can become so inner directed that it cuts us off from social involvement, which is vital to the survival of humanity. This is the core reason why the social potential movement is so necessary now.”—Barbara Marx Hubbard
CONNECT by Clif Taylor
If there is a heaven, why wouldn’t it be for everyone? And if it is for everyone, why isn’t our connection to everyone here and now a form of heaven—and denying that, “hell.” No one should have to merely endure life on Earth until they get to Heaven. Practically speaking what this means, the author says, is, “If you want something, choose to be that yourself. If you want peace, be peaceful; if you want something fixed, understand what it’s like to be broken; if you want a lot of anything, be a lot of it.” I came to this book (with its visions of Mary, Christ, Buddha and Mohammed on the cover) very skeptically, but found that its common sense wisdom makes perfect sense.
The author, Clif Taylor, recalls how he was inspired by reading Neale Donald Walsch (of Conversations with God fame). And the first few chapters of this book follow that model with Jesus answering questions. But from Chapter 5 on, the answers are seldom attributed to any specific source. Taylor says, “From this point forward in the book, I no longer asked anyone specific to answer my questions. I simply thought of my questions, asked them and most answers came to me inside my head without the single tone of voice I had heard in the earlier chapters.” As a writer I believe this. Writers picture situations for characters and go to bed at night not knowing what will happen. We awake the next morning and we do know. Why should the use of inspiration be limited to novels and poetry? Why not aspire to a life built on the premise that truth is within us just waiting to come out?
Certain conclusions follow that: 1. we have a personal responsibility to others, 2. we cannot horde knowledge, 3. education–asking questions and finding answers—is everyone’s task, not just that of schools and governments. This book is very readable, not dogmatic and stimulates thinking and discussion. The author took nine years to write it and the page at the beginning of over a hundred people he thanks show his connectedness to others. And there are some little things that are very pleasing” “Those who do not accept the word ‘soul’ should replace it with ‘the knowing you have of yourself’—your core, so to speak.” “(Jesus says) The purpose of both my birth and death was to prompt wonder.”
At first I thought that after the first two-thirds of “Connect” I had a good enough grasp on what the author was saying to make my own applications without the last 50 pages. But now I feel those pages provide clarification and affirmation (in their specific application) of what we have learned before. The book is well organized and shows careful editing. Aside from the amateurish cover I wouldn’t change a thing. Some readers may not agree with me on this, but I think the message of “Connect” more helpful than the Neale Donald Waslch books, which I find a somewhat preachy and forced. Taylor advises us: “How and why you make your choices make your life what it is. I suggest you base your thousands of daily, conscious choices in love and life.” Or put another way, “If children learn life from heaven’s viewpoint, instead of learning heaven from life’s viewpoint, they will walk in love’s path gloriously.”
I think that last sentence, and this book, is a “must” for all of us.
–John Lehman for BookReview.com
This book is available through: www.connectwithheavenonearth.com
