Fritjof Capra is best known as the author of “The Tao of Physics“, in which he claimed that there are meaningful similarities between the pronouncements of the mystics and modern science. In the present book he looks at the same idea in a different context. His theme is the bankruptcy of the mechanistic world view of Newton and Descartes and the need to replace it with a holistic outlook, more in keeping with modern physics, which he considers to be the model or “paradigm” for how we should be thinking about life in general and our place in the universe in particular.
The book has two main sections. In the first part Capra considers the failings of the old order in terms of the prevailing view of medicine, psychology, and economics. In all these areas, he says, materialistic, authoritarian, male-dominated ways of thinking have led to a dangerously narrow-minded view of how things are. In the second part, entitled “A New Vision of Reality”, Capra sets forth his vision of what should replace the old outlook. In medicine, the kind of thing we need is exemplified by homeopathy; in psychology we could look to Wilhelm Reich, the eccentric associate of Freud who later claimed to have discovered something he called orgone energy, which Capra relates to the Chinese concept of chi. Jung is endorsed too, and so are various psychotherapeutic movements popular on the West Coast of America. Even the egregious Carlos Castaneda and his alleged guru Don Juan get a favourable mention.
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I have to say, this is one of my favourite books this year. Incredible writing. The details are amazing. She’s damn good
‘Kiran Desai is a terrific writer. This book richly fulfils the promise of her first.’ – Salman Rushdie
In the north-eastern Himalayas, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, in an isolated and crumbling house, there lives an embittered old judge, who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook trying to stay a step ahead of US immigration services, this is far from easy.
When a Nepalese insurgency threatens the blossoming romance between Sai and her handsome tutor, they, too, are forced to consider their colliding interests. The judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicting desires – every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal.
Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India, in England, and the United States. Kiran studied creative writing at Columbia University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss.
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Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century. In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi’s “attitude of experimenting, of tesing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances,”in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities. All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.
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Roy’s nov
el was published 1996, quickly became a best-seller, and won the prestigious Booker Prize in October, 1997.
Roy often denies in interviews that she has been influenced by Salman Rushdie, but it is difficult to see how she could have avoided his influence, pervasive among younger South Asian writers. Particularly notable here are such typically Rushdean stylistic tricks as capitalizing Significant Words and runningtogether other words. More importantly, her novel is filled with the same sort of insistent foreshadowing as occurs throughout Midnight’s Children, and like Rushdie (and models Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez) uses an incongruously jaunty tone to relate tales of horror and tragedy. Like his Shame, her novel is partly a protest against South Asian prudery which stands in the way of love.
Her most original contribution in this novel is her portrayal of children, entering into their thinking in a way which does not sentimentalize them but reveals the fierce passions and terrors which course through them and almost destroy them.
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In 16 works of fiction and nonfiction written over a period of some 20 years, V.S. Naipaul has been taking his readers to remote, inaccessible places in the third world. ”Among the Believers,” his new book, is the chronicle of a seven-month journey he made in 1979 and 1980 to Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia in search of Islam. It displays all of Naipaul’s major themes, his great talent as a writer and his increasing limitation of vision.
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This volume contains Edward Fitzgerald’s classic translation with all its variations, Justin McCarthy’s elegant and mystical literal translation and Richard Le Gallienne’s sharp and poetic version. For the first time the reader can appreciate the range of Omar Khayyám and his interpreters in a single volume. Give me a flagon of red wine, a book of verses, a loaf of bread, and a little idleness. If with such store I might sit by thy dear side in some lonely place, I should deem myself happier than a king in his kingdom.
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