Acclaimed historian and biographer Johnson (Humorists: From Hogarth to Noel Coward, 2010, etc.) offers a short celebration of the life and influence of the Athenian philosopher.
An unapologetic fan, the author faces, as do all who write of distant times, the insurmountable problem of uncertainty. Socrates wrote nothing we know of, so we must rely on the records and testimony of others—generally a risky business. Johnson argues that Plato’s dialogues are initially reliable, then less so as Plato became more fond of his own ideas. Johnson chides Plato repeatedly—even compares him with Victor Frankenstein—for putting into the mouth of Socrates words that more properly belonged in his own. At other times, the author resorts to phrases like “I suspect” and “I assume” to keep his argument flowing. Johnson highlights numerous Socratic principles, most notably the separation of the body and soul, Socrates’ devotion to the law (he would not attempt to escape it, even when it meant his own safety), the immorality of revenge, the need to educate women and the corrosive desire to possess things. He notes that Socrates dearly loved Athens and Athenians, enjoyed wandering the streets and engaging people of all sorts in discussions about the meaning of apparently ordinary things. Socrates knew that clarity was essential in human discourse. Johnson also notes that Socrates’ use of humor and irony were certain to be lost on many—and were techniques disastrous to his own defense at his trial. The author also points out similarities between ancient Athens and today—e.g., our love/hate relationships with celebrities. A succinct, useful exploration of life in ancient Athens and of the great philosopher’s essential beliefs.
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02303-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
