I started and finished A Sense of Direction in one evening; I couldn't really stop thinking about it, so I couldn't put it down. I found it...
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Flannery O'Connor writes like no one else. Until I read a collection of her letters and got some understanding of her judgment of her characters--she judges them on a scale of spiritual honesty--I was puzzled by her writing. Now I am just thrilled by the mind that could create such unconventional (mostly Southern) people and put them through so many spins of the wheel. I can't put down any one of her stories in the middle.
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(4 of 9 readers found this comment helpful)
In a way this book reminds me of the novel about another young man on a quest, Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge," and, interestingly, the narrator in that novel claims it's not a novel but a true story. Notable in each book is a worldly, brawling man who introduces the seeker to spiritual life and broadens his vision. The Zen aspect of this tale (though far more wordy than any Zen manual) is important in today's world to show that spirituality is not something to be isolated and labeled, but lived.
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(210 of 236 readers found this comment helpful)
I couldn't put this book down! It's Henry James with a feminine touch, a deftly rendered account of four generations of a multiracial family whose beloved, beautiful, blonde-and-blue-eyed black daughter is on the verge of her wedding. West weaves conscious and unconscious choices into a tale that explodes in unexpected yet inevitable violence, a "wedding" of all the forces that have divided our country racially since its very beginning. This is a great novel!!!!
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(8 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
This is a powerful story about a policewoman who is pursuing the case of a suicide of a woman she has known since girlhood. Although the former chief detective, who saved the investigator's life, would like to think his daughter was murdered -- anything, he says, rather than that she committed suicide with three bullets to her brain -- this is clearly a case of self-murder. Therefore, the mystery becomes why, not how or who. The disturbing answer to the why of the act leads to enormous changes in the life of the investigator.
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(5 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
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Marilyn Stachenfeld has commented on (12) products.
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Marilyn Stachenfeld, July 29, 2008
Flannery O'Connor writes like no one else. Until I read a collection of her letters and got some understanding of her judgment of her characters--she judges them on a scale of spiritual honesty--I was puzzled by her writing. Now I am just thrilled by the mind that could create such unconventional (mostly Southern) people and put them through so many spins of the wheel. I can't put down any one of her stories in the middle.(4 of 9 readers found this comment helpful)
Short History of the Long Ball
Marilyn Stachenfeld, July 23, 2008
I can't add a comment. I'm too discouraged by your not publishing my comments! Whatever are your criteria!(5 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk by Nikolai Grozni
Marilyn Stachenfeld, July 22, 2008
In a way this book reminds me of the novel about another young man on a quest, Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge," and, interestingly, the narrator in that novel claims it's not a novel but a true story. Notable in each book is a worldly, brawling man who introduces the seeker to spiritual life and broadens his vision. The Zen aspect of this tale (though far more wordy than any Zen manual) is important in today's world to show that spirituality is not something to be isolated and labeled, but lived.(210 of 236 readers found this comment helpful)
The Wedding by Dorothy West
Marilyn Stachenfeld, July 8, 2008
I couldn't put this book down! It's Henry James with a feminine touch, a deftly rendered account of four generations of a multiracial family whose beloved, beautiful, blonde-and-blue-eyed black daughter is on the verge of her wedding. West weaves conscious and unconscious choices into a tale that explodes in unexpected yet inevitable violence, a "wedding" of all the forces that have divided our country racially since its very beginning. This is a great novel!!!!(8 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
Marilyn Stachenfeld, July 8, 2008
This is a powerful story about a policewoman who is pursuing the case of a suicide of a woman she has known since girlhood. Although the former chief detective, who saved the investigator's life, would like to think his daughter was murdered -- anything, he says, rather than that she committed suicide with three bullets to her brain -- this is clearly a case of self-murder. Therefore, the mystery becomes why, not how or who. The disturbing answer to the why of the act leads to enormous changes in the life of the investigator.(5 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
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