Amazon.com
Joanne Harris's first novel, Chocolat, was set in the sleepy French village of Lansquenet, where enchantment, romance, and soft-centered truths issued from the local confectioner's shop. She returns to the same location for Blackberry Wine. But as the title suggests, she's shifted her focus from food to drink, choosing a half-dozen bottles of homemade plonk as the catalyst for her "layman's alchemy." And even the narrator is no human being but a faintly tannic Fleurie 1962: "A pert, garrulous wine, cheery and little brash, with a pungent taste of blackcurrant!"
There are, of course, some less vinous characters in the novel. Harris's protagonist, Jay Mackintosh, is a former literary star, now sadly stalled. He spends his time writing second-rate science fiction, leading a hollow media life, and drinking: "Not to forget, but to remember, to open up the past and find himself there again." Yet the nice, expensive wines don't do the trick. Instead, six "Specials"--a gift from his old friend Joe--function as Jay's magical elixir. Like Proust's lime-blossom tisane, they give him the gift of his memories but also unlock his future, which encourages him to flee the rut of his London life and buy a house in Lansquenet.
As Jay settles in, he contemplates his childhood friendship with Joe, whose idiosyncratic outlook was the inspiration for his only successful book. Meanwhile, he becomes involved in village life, encountering some familiar faces from Chocolat. Caro and Toinette, the snooty troublemakers, soon put in an appearance, and Josephine, the bar owner and battered wife of the earlier novel, becomes a real friend. But it's a new character, the enigmatic Marise, who becomes the focus of Jay's attention--and who helps to restore his literary joie de vivre. This feat of resurrection makes for a hugely enjoyable read. It also goes one step further in adding Lansquenet to the map of imaginary destinations, where daydreams can come true with intoxicating frequency. --Eithne Farry
Book Description
As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of "Jackapple Joe" Cox. A lonely child, he found solace in Old Joe's simple wisdom and folk charms. The magic was lost, however, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall.
Years later, Jay's life is stalled with regret and ennui. His bestselling novel, Jackapple Joe, was published ten years earlier and he has written nothing since. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet. There, in that strange and yet strangely familiar place, Jay hopes to re-create the magic of those golden childhood summers. And while the spirit of Joe is calling to him, it is actually a similarly haunted, reclusive woman who will ultimately help Jay find himself again.
Customer Reviews:
Typical Joanne Harris.......2007-05-13
My second Joanne Harris novel and I have to say that she sure does have a unique and special style all her own. I liked this book but can't really recommend it as a must-read. What I enjoyed most about the book was that Jay was a writer. I liked learning about his writing process and daily writing habits. The parts about the little girl having a goat as an indoor house pet were a little far-fetched and I didn't really get the whole bit about the bad wines always rattling around in the cellar and their "specialness" since they were supposedly undrinkable. Overall the book's plot did not excite me too much and we never really know why the husband did what he did that was supposed to be the big surprise at the end. It really did not make much sense. There are a lot of the same themes that were used earlier in Chocolat here: gypsies, magic spells, living the traveling life, a foreigner entering a small village, whimsical children. It wasn't exactly a page-turner but I did want to know how it would eventually end even though some parts were so boring I would lose interest and start thinking of other things then what I was actually reading.
Cooking, Gardens, France - Say No More!.......2007-02-05
Half-English, half-French writer Joanne Harris is best known for writing the best-selling novel CHOCOLAT, which is a decadent treat, but her follow-up novel BLACKBERRY WINE is even more magical and showcases the love of land and gardens of both heritages. Reclusive writer Jay Mackintosh is stuck in adolescence until he invokes the memories of an elderly gardener and astral traveler who helped him out in his youth and strikes out for a ramshackle French country farm. It helps to have a bit of high school French and basic knowledge of garden plants to enjoy this sensuous novel most fully.
Underwhelmed..........2006-10-09
Characters, a potential romance and story line are substantially underdeveloped. Skip this one (and skip Gentlemen & Players) and move to "Chocolat" and "Five Quarters of the Orange."
Another wonderful story from Joanne Harris.......2006-08-09
BLACKBERRY WINE by Joanne Harris
August 8, 2006
Amazon Rating: 4/5 stars
In this book by Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat), the story revolves around writer Jay Mackintosh, and his search for happiness. The story is told via two time lines. The first one dates back to the 1970's, where Jay's memories take the reader back to his summers spent in a place that was known as Pog Hill in England. Out of these memories came his groundbreaking novel, JACKAPPLE JOE, based on the man that eventually became a mentor to him. Joe and Jay had a very unusual relationship, as Joe was much older but wiser and told Jay of his travels around the world, teaching Jay all about plants and healing and the magical power of herbs.
The second time line takes us to the present, when Jay has decided on a whim to purchase a cottage in a village in France that he believes is where Joe used to live, leaving his long time girlfriend Kerry without much of a warning. His relationship with Kerry is one sided, and he feels claustrophobic. Kerry really has no idea what is going on in Jay's mind, but she has a need to fix him and wants him to write that sequel to that great novel he is now known for.
The 1970's time line is one of nostalgia but it also has a big influence on Jay's present life, where he is filled with regret for losing track of Joe, a man that he took for granted as a boy, but now realizes that Joe meant the world to him. However, Jay thinks he's losing his mind as Joe begins to appear to Jay once he moves into the old cottage in the French village, and Jay's relationship with Joe begins anew.
Throughout the story, a series of wine bottles known as THE SPECIALS are always in the background, giving a sense of magic and surrealism to the story, as is common in all Joanne Harris novels. The Specials react to Jay's actions, and act as harbingers to what may happen next.
Jay's life takes a turn when he moves to the cottage, as he gains a new motivation to write that second novel. He also becomes curious about his neighbor, a woman who is known to covet his land and whose daughter is known to the village as deaf and dumb. But Jay knows there has to be a story here, and after he's learned a lot about the other villagers who become sources of potential characters in his new novel, he can't get a grasp on the mysterious Marise.
As always, I enjoyed this novel by Joanne Harris very much. The book started out at a slow pace, as the story is set up, but once I got the rhythm of the time lines, the book moved faster. This is a good read for all fans of Joanne Harris and readers of good fiction.
Loved this book!.......2006-07-17
I really loved this book. It has a truly magical quality to it, and I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to read her next book. Thank you to a great author and storyteller. It is a great book to take traveling especially for those long waits at the airport or train station. Time just flies by!
Average customer rating:
- Unfortunate death of trees
- Horrible
- Ed Greenwood needs a cold shower.
- Just About the Worst Book I've Ever Read...
- Uh... what happened and when?
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Elminster in Hell (Forgotten Realms: The Elminster Series, Book 4)
Ed Greenwood
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Similar Items:
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The Temptation of Elminster (Forgotten Realms: Elminster)
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Elminster in Myth Drannor (Forgotten Realms: Elminster)
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Elminster's Daughter (Forgotten Realms: Elminster)
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Elminster: The Making of a Mage (Forgotten Realms: Elminster)
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Cormyr (Forgotten Realms: The Cormyr Saga, Book 1)
ASIN: 0786927461
Release Date: 2002-05-01 |
Book Description
Hell Hath Such Fury
On the world of his birth he's all but a god, but when an ancient evil banishes him to the depths of the Nine Hells, he's just another lost soul. Elminster, Sage of Shadowdale, Chosen of Mystra, faces his most desperate struggle--to survive, to escape, to cling to his very sanity--and all the forces of the inferno are rallied against him.
The top-selling book by the creator of the
Forgotten Realms universe is now in paperback!
Customer Reviews:
Unfortunate death of trees.......2006-03-21
Elminster in Hell is nearly as bad as Hand of Fire when it comes to rambling writing, plotlessness, and dire need for an editor with a firm hand (or a publisher that refuses to publish!).
Verdict: A waste of paper.
Horrible.......2006-02-14
*SPOILER WARNING
I have read every Elminster novel in this series and I thought they were ALL horrible beyond belief. Why did I read this then?
I thought there might be a chance that Greenwood got better as a writer(I thought that same thing with every new Greenwood novel) and the premise of the story sounded really good: An adventure in hell! yesssss.
While the story DOES take place in hell (more specifically: Avernus which is the 1st level of the 9 hells), its certainly not an adventure.
First off. Elminster is all of a sudden shot to hell in the first page. As I read this, I asked myself "how?" and "why?". These two questions weren't answered until much later in the book! I know that any other author would have started the book differently. Maybe from the villans point of view? you know..a little plotting and planning in the beginning so we can know why and how Elminster goes to hell? It just seemed too all of a sudden.
So. As soon as our hero gets to hell. He is captured by an Archdevil by the name of Nergal. Nergal wants Elminsters memories of working magic, so he in turn can learn how to use it to rule all of Toril.
The memories that we read about are all dull and feel like they don't advance the plot. Mirt the Moneylenders night with a "pleasure-lass" who has 2 kids. Vanderhagast's (sp?) missing War Wizard. BLAH!
I understand that Elminster chose boring memories to goad Nergal, but did Greenwood think that the readers might find them boring as well? Does Greenwood even have an editor by the way?
Another thing we come to understand way later in the book, is that Elminster is choosing certain memories to contact his friends indirectly to come and save him (typical Elminster style of course). First there is Vanderhagast(sp?) who cant do anything to help, then there is Mirt, who cant do anything to help, then MYSTRA herself! She gets there and cant do much. THE GODDESS OF MAGIC...couldn't rescue him? Psshhh. Mystra then sends Halaster Blackcloak. He gets there and cant save our hero. So finally. The Simbul herself flies down to rescue of beloved hero and wisks him out of there. So the Simbul (who's pretty powerful) can rescue Elminster from Hell, and MYSTRA (Who gave the Simbul her magic)CANT? That just seemed way too unbelievable to me.
Nergal is an extremely annoying villan. He constantly repeats himself when Elminster's memories have ended. "Don't toy with me human" and others like it, are prevailant. He just seems too much like a cookie cutter villan for my taste.
Elminster himself is tortured so badly throughout the book (getting his arms ripped off, etc...) and still manages to make wise cracks at his devil captor. If I had my eyeball poked out, like Elminster did, I wouldn't be able to even think words in my head. Then again. This is Elminster and he is invincible and unbeatable...please.
All in all, this was REALLY bad. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. If you are like me and are addicted to the realms, then you could try to sit through this, apparently some people have and some actually enjoyed it!
I was interested to learn more about Elminster because I've heard his name mentioned many many times throughout other realms novels as the Realms greatest hero and wanted to learn more.
When I started reading the Elminster novels I was expecting great character development. After all Elminster is the greatest realms hero, so you would think he would have an interesting story right? Boy was I wrong. I think its very sad that a potentially great character was ruined by a bad writer. If any other realms author wrote the Elminster novels, you might have seen Elminster as the Mage-equivalent of Drizzt!
Instead we are left with this horny old mage, who talks like a dwarf trying to speak old english ("aye" "ye" "thee" "thou" etc...), who begs his goddess to help him whenever he gets into trouble (she helps him 99% of the time by the way), who seems to botch things rather then help, who is invincible, who is immortal, who knows every spell, etc etc I could go on for days. I like imperfect heroes, dont get me wrong, but Elminster is too IMperfect and too perfect for me. Also, when has a horny old man ever been a like-able character?
If you are thinking of getting into the realms, I would recommend (like MANY others) starting with RA Savlatore. His books have deep characters that you can relate to and understand, LOTS of action, and great fast paced plots. Unlike this.
Ed Greenwood needs a cold shower........2006-01-04
This is just a mess of a book. The concept was enough to get me to pick the book up: the mighty Elminster, fighting for his life against a duke of Hell. And for a little while, the story is somewhat engrossing as we take a trip through Elminster's memories while the old wizard tries to distract his captor from learning all of the secrets of one of Mystra's Chosen.
As the book moves on, however, the story starts to fall apart. Elminster reaches out through his thoughts to a number of his friends and acquaintances. Among those who get involved in the plot are Mirt the Moneylender, Vangerdahast, the Simbul, Halaster, and Mystra herself. However, Mirt and Vangerdahast prove themselves completely useless, worrying about Elminster but being unable to help him or even advance the plot. Halaster only proves himself somewhat useful as a deus ex machina near the end and even then only with Mystra's help. Even Mystra herself, the goddess of magic in the Forgotten Realms, proves to be of little use in Elminster's rescue. As a result, we have really only three important characters: Elminster, the Simbul, and the devil captor. The rest of the cast serves no other purpose than to mill about ineffectually and occasionally serve as the focus of a quick flashback from the old mage.
Even more frustrating than the mess of a plot that Greenwood provides is the fact that he writes like a horny adolescent. Every woman in the novel -- bar none -- ends up undressed at one point or another. Every interlude we get involves sex in one way or another, not as a way of advancing the plot but more or less just because Greenwood seems obsessed with woman wanting to sleep with Elminster. This is the type of writing that gives fantasy a bad name and results in so few people taking it seriously. It's fine if you're just starting puberty and you've never kissed a girl, but considering that the subject matter I would expect a slightly more mature approach to the female characters in the book. Greenwood's novel reads more like soft core pornography than a decent fantasy story. This is the type of novel that makes parents wary of fantasy literature and keeps it from being considered a legitimate genre.
Overall, while Elminster in Hell does start off strong and provides a rare challenge to the nearly godlike old mage, the story is scattered with lots of useless diversions from the main plot, supporting characters who seem extraneous at best, and a deluge of useless female characters whose only purpose seems to be to bare their breasts as often as possible.
Just About the Worst Book I've Ever Read..........2005-08-28
I keep reading Ed's work, specifically about Elminster, because I assume that Ed, being the Forgotten Realms legend, and Elminster, being the greatest of all FR heroes, that there has to be something good there. Well, after three very poorly written books, this one reading like a very confusing screen play, I realize that Elminster is who he is, a very weak, uncompelling character who always is begging to his deity to save his butt. The story was difficult to follow because of the insane format of the writing that Ed chose to use in this novel. The only reason I read it through to completion was in the hopes that it would somehow lift itself from its dark grave, or, that at least I would feel empowered to save the rest of you and be able to write this review with a clean conscience. If your looking for good FR stories, well developed characters with motivations, and such, read some RA Salvatore.
Uh... what happened and when?.......2005-08-16
I admit I am not a big fan of Greenwood's, yet for some reason I keep subjecting myself to his book. This book differs from Greenwoods's other novels in that this one makes absolutley no sense what so ever. This book is a jumble of ideas all trying for the same page... it doesn't follow a logical line of thought, nor is there any real character development. I enjoy the character of Elminster, but how many Elminster books do we really need? The initial Elminster series was good, then it just fell apart after that.
This book is definatley a pass...
Average customer rating:
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Elminster in Hell
Ed Greenwood
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K3LEIO |
Book Description
Unlike most planets, Rimillia does not spin upon its axis so its day and night sides are subject to perpetual extremes of hot and cold. Habitation has only been possible on a thin band of the planet's surface...until now.
Using gigantic impulse engines of unimaginable power, the alien Dumada intend to start Rimillia rotating, rendering the entire world fit for colonization. Yet some fear the enormous stresses involved may tear the planet apart.
Assigned to assist the Dumada, Captain Kirk must rescue a kidnapped scientist vital to the rotation project. But, once the giant engines are activated, can even Scotty save Rimillia -- and the U.S.S. Enterprise™ -- from total destruction.
Download Description
In Twilight's End, inhabitants of the planet Rimillia are forced to live within a thin band of surface because their planet doesn't revolve on an axis. It's up to Kirk, Scotty, and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to make sure a risky rotation project doesn't spin out of control.
Customer Reviews:
Very nearly five stars........2007-01-20
This is an excellent novel, handling characterization, plot, and pacing quite well. I can't quite say that it's exceptional enough to rate five stars, but it's close.
Pure fun.......2004-03-13
This is a comedy, almost to the point of satirising Star Trek. The background story is actually fairly impressive and intricate. To return their planet to habitability, the population intends to use tens of thousands of impulse drives to spin it up to normal rotation. A terrorist faction has kidnapped the lead engineer, attacked the facilities, and has no qualms about firing on the Enterprise. The descriptions are quite vivid. The action scenes are very clear. Throughout the book there are amusing commentaries on both and also on the characters, particularly by McCoy and Spock about Captain Kirk. The writing is generally light and amusing, although there are some very serious scenes. However, the descriptions in Kirk's section, as he searches for the engineer, seem written more for young adults than for mature readers. As a counter to that, there is a debate between McCoy and Spock over the ethics of the mechanical solution in contrast to a more `natural' biological one. Finally, the last third or so of the book is given to firing the engines and spinning the planet. There are lots of `Trekisms' here: "Capt'n, she canna take much more", "Hold her together, Scotty." The result is a strange but to me very amusing mixture of epic and farce: the dialogue could have been pulled from almost any episode where the Enterprise is in trouble, but instead of the ship they are dealing with a whole planet. It's weird but it works very well. In summary, I would say that this is written in the style of the humour episodes of Deep Space Nine. If you enjoy those you should enjoy this too.
Amazon.com
John Horgan makes the powerful case that the best and most exciting scientific discoveries are behind us. He states that many scientists today, particularly those he interviewed for the book, are "gripped by a profound unease," due partially to dwindling financial resources and vicious competition, but increasingly due to the sense that "the great era of scientific discovery is over." In other words, he argues, the big problems that can be solved have been, and the big ones that haven't been solved can't be. Among the celebrated thinkers quoted in this ambitious book are Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose, and John Archibald Wheeler. A concise history of the last 20 years of scientific study introduces his thesis and covers such topics as superstring theory, mathematical topology, and how to distinguish chaos from complexity.
Customer Reviews:
John Horgan is the Judas of Science: the enemy of fact.......2007-02-04
He pretty much knew that he was writing tripe.
John Horgan mistakes his popularity and scientific political power for knowledge and wisdom.
I suppose that ethics is dead as well, so that he is allowed to be this evil.
By talking with all these great men he had a chance for real knowledge
and instead he made verbal cartoons and ridiculed all their ideas.
He would definitely be the lawyer for the devil if one could exist.
I don't think we need to be Spartan about this fox eating our insides out:
he probably deserves the fate of a Judas.
At the end of the book he congratulates himself for his hatchet job on science and it's scientists.
You will notice that like a good English major he hasn't included one equation:
not even Rossler's that he probably didn't even copy down ( page 236).
Rossler named what he had done: distortion.
I think that maybe science deserves to be so served
as it stands today.
Journalists are not scientists!!!.......2006-09-25
"The End of Science" is a stupid book written by a stupid science fanboy journalist with a big case of envy for Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man." "The End of Science" is what happens when journalists spend so much time hanging out and fawning over scentists that they start believing they're scientists themselves.
Time is a good judge: this book was complete crap.......2006-08-27
John Horgan is one of those intellectually challenged journalists who only want to write about big things because they are too proud to be interested in any particular "small" question that science tries to solve. So many of these journalists choose a truly big theory - namely that there is something seriously wrong with the scientific method and with science and that science may be ending.
Of course, the scientists consider all such journalists and "thinkers" to be cranks, for a very good reason. The very existence of our civilization - something that distinguishes most of us from the monkeys - is based on certain general principles that also underlie science and these principles will never be given up unless the whole humankind is really doomed.
Careful thinking that is as quantitative as possible and the elimination of ideas that have turned out not to be viable are two examples of such principles.
John Horgan, is his attempt to earn his 15 minutes of fame - plus some bucks - has written this nasty book that not only offered a whole sequence of possible theories how science can finally be killed and how horrible science is. This book was also full of personal attacks against the scientists, their appearance, their voice, and all of their other superficial and unimportant characteristics.
John Horgan was - and still is - just far too dumb to be able to look into the scientists' thoughts, the entities that make the scientists important. At least, he could analyze their "quirkiness" and write confusing stories about the scientists and aliens that have nothing to do with the essence of the research done by the actual scientists.
Such crappy books have always found a lot of readers who eagerly buy them. However, the books have no lasting value. It's been almost 10 years since the book was released, and all of its predictions look even more absurd now than they looked 10 years ago. The science hasn't ended, Edward Witten is still the most respected physicist, and John Horgan is still just a despicable nobody.
Also, this book is the 360,000th most successful book at amazon.com; compare with The Elegant Universe that has been among the top 1,000 books more or less for the whole time. Nevertheless, the big doomsayers and science-haters will never close their mouth. So they still flood the book market with many new crappy books that are very similar to Horgan's book - Troubles with Physics, Not Even Wrong, and various feminist diatribes against the male science - books that will surely share the fate of this nonsense written by Horgan. But before the time will speak, thousands of new stupid consumers will buy these books and they will say how terribly inspiring the content is.
After the end, then what? .......2006-01-23
I would have preferred to have heard more from the scientists. Verbatim transcripts of Horgan's interviews with these major scientists would have been welcome - instead of descriptions by Horgan of the scientists' appearances and manners, and lots of paraphrasing of what they had to say. It is remarkable how many great scientists Horgan has had the opporunity to speak with in serious dialogue.
No behaviorist is interviewed. Horgan says Nohm Chomky's book "Syntatic Structures" helped to "rout behaviorism once and for all..." Skinner's own book on language, "Verbal Behavior" didn't assume an innate and rather complete grammatical ability, but speculated how operant conditioning might help in explaining language acquisition. Chomsky reviewed that book...with a vicious attack. Skinner never replied and some saw that as a win for Chomsky. Years later Skinner revealed that when he began to read Chomsky's review, he felt it so serverely misunderstood what Skinner was doing that he never bothered to finish it or reply.
Was behaviorism routed once and for all? In a March 2004 article, Roddy Roediger, president of the American Psychological Society and himself a cognitive psychologist, in the APS's Observer entitled "What Happened to Behaviorism", writes of Chomsky's review of Skinner that it is "rather effectively refuted in a commentary by Kenneth MacCorquodale". Roediger goes on in that article to note the ongoing contributions of behaviorism.
Why couldn't "Syntactic Structures" help to rout behaviorism? The behaviorist William Baum says it plainly in his book "Understanding Behaviorism": "No matter how precise...a grammar tells us nothing about how and why people come to say the things they do. Once we recognize that speaking and writing are forms of operant behavior, we can begin to explain them."
Horgan may also have avoided including a behaviorist among his interviewees because behaviorists, although very mindful of limits, are making constructive progress: they're not focusing on any end to their science. Behaviorism has proven effective in helping with autism. Skinner's own appeal in "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" suggested consideration of major ways of improving our social organizations.
What if we've reached the "end of science"? There are still huge environment and social problems to be adressed, problems which I didn't see Horgan addressing. Instead, he devotes his epilogue to a mystical experience that led him to consider whether God is chewing his fingernails! Even if we've reached the end of science, there is much to do, so I'd suggest you instead read B.F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity". Behaviorism was hardly routed and, in learning how we can carry on in the difficult years ahead, you may well find Skinner a more constructive read than Horgan. Unless, like Horgan, you find the question of whether God chews his fingernails more engaging.
I would hope Horgan would give Radical Behaviorism a second look and, if he remains opposed to it, state just how it is that he (Horgan) and not Chomsky understands Radical Behaviorism to have failed.
P.S. I have learned that Horgan has a more recent book "Rational Mysticism" and other more recent writings. Although he is decidedly a science writer, at least his work since "End of Science" on mysticism impresses ne a great deal for willingness to challenge authorities and general honesty. It may seem like an entirely different kind of thing than what he is dealing with in "The End of Science" but if mysticism [ and the problems with some forms of mysticism] intrigue you, I recommend Horgan for that.
End of Popular Science?.......2005-06-07
Each chapter of Hogan's book decrees "The End Of". Astronomy, Physics, Cosmology, Biology, Chemistry... all branches of science and logic have their end in sight. Even Limitology will progress no further!
In his amusing interviews with leading scientists and intellectuals Hogan reviews the great accomplishments of twentieth century science. But he reckons progress is stalling and will come to a halt.
As Hogan points out, each discovery made by scientists is one less that can be discovered in the future! With hindsight, it seems that the theory of gravity, now taught to every school kid, was a pretty straight-forward thing for Newton. It was do-able science just waiting to be discovered.
All that remains is for scientists to experiment in scales of the ridiculously small (nano) and large (astronomic) in attempt to discover new avenues for science. The natural world in which we live is seemingly all accounted for. Hogan doesn't think we have a Theory of Everything just yet. Rather he feels we're about as close as we're ever going to get.
All this makes an interesting read. It's true that the scientific community has mushroomed in size over the past 50 years. But progress is now slow and hard; no big revolutions to rival those of the past. The impact of the individual scientist has certainly diminished; although there are exceptions.
However I doubt that through history of science it has always been obvious what is not known. What gets solved by science isn't a simple list of the known unknowns. It is more than often the unexpected unknowns! For example, the discovery of the acceleration of the universe's expansion - a complete surprise! I have heard one cosmologist suggest that Hogan's book needs to be updated.
But despite my reluctance to accept Hogan premise, I do really recommend this book. It's a great read and Hogan argues his points well.
Average customer rating:
- Thoughts Without Synthesis
- Ebert is a visionary
- Pretty title
- Dreadful
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Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of an Age
John David Ebert
Manufacturer: Council Oak Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1571780793 |
Book Description
Analyzes the fusion of religious and scientifiic thinking at the turn of the millennium. Cutting-edge thinkers and practitioners in all scientific disciplines are emerging with startling discoveries and theories, all of which have much in common with the ancient myths of many spiritual traditions. In Twilight of the Clockwork God, John David Ebert brings many of these views together and illustrates their place in the history and development of Western thought.
At the center of the book are interviews that allow nine highly regarded thinkers to present their theories in their own words. Drawing on his expertise in this subject, Ebert skillfully places the different ideologies in a clear context. A historical overview demonstrates not only the emergence of modern science from ancient myth, but also shows that contemporary science is returning to the ground of its mythic origins, drawing from its images, narratives and metaphors to form a seamless continuum of ideas for the dawning millennium.
Those interviewed include Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham,Terence McKenna, Stanislav Grof, Lynn Margulis, William Irwin Thompson and Deepak Chopra.
In his conclusion, Ebert argues that no longer can we conceptualize our universe as a mechanical thing-a machine, a clockwork. This outdated and "pernicious" world-view has long blinded Westerners to the truth. The universe has revealed itself as a living entity, self-sustaining, growing, sentient and bursting with creativity. Thus our culture is undergoing a profound change in cosmology as the images of myth are used to expand our horizons of scientific knowledge.
Customer Reviews:
Thoughts Without Synthesis.......2001-06-02
I read all the way through John David Ebert's "Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of Age," but there isn't much meat in the text. It's inspiring, in a way, that one can get a published book out of just asking eight philosophers to comment on the history and place of their own work. Aside from that, Ebert's contribution is an annotated timeline of about 120 books since 1894. This begins with Rudolf Steiner and works through Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred North Whitehead, Joseph Campbell, Marshall McLuhan, Fritjof Capra, and many others, away from mechanical models of the universe and toward mythical and biological models. We can now use man's shared and perhaps universal myths to think about our place in the growth and interaction of natural ecologies -- perhaps including the Earth ("Gaia") or the universe as living systems. If that proves a productive line of reasoning, these philosophers will have been among the pioneers. Some of the most interesting themes come from attempted syntheses of Western and Eastern thought. I might look up some of the cited authors, especially Stanislav Grof, William Irwin Thompson, and at least the early writings of Deepak Chopra.
Ebert is a visionary.......2001-03-15
This is a work of uncontestable brilliance, the most important contribution to the history of thought since Nietzsche published "The Birth of Tragedy"; in addition to its own merits, it is a monumental work of the intellectual history of humanity from its origin in the protoplasmic goop of the Big Bang through the end of the 1990s.
Ebert's essays place him in that great line of scholars that starts with Nietzsche and branches out with Spengler and Jung, Jean Gebser, Joseph Campbell, and William Irwin Thompson. In terms of its creativity, one might call it a contemporary "Finnegans Wake" (without the puns).
And though his writing shines with Ra-like luminescence, and for all the passages of soaring lyrical grandeur (his prose at times evocative of the arias of Wagner), Ebert manages to keep his proverbial feet on the ground. He incisively interviews seven fascinating subjects from various academic and theoretical backgrounds, and applies the deft touch of Barbara Walters and razor-sharp intellect of Mike Wallace (his interviewing persona is a sort of hermaphroditic blend of those two) as these magnificent seven share with us fortunate readers the true essence, the cuori sacrissimi, of their various and sundry philosophaei.
After reading "Twilight of the Clockwork God," try as they might, readers will never be able to think of life, or humanity, or damned well anything, in the same way, ever again.
Be prepared for a mind-blowing paradigm shift on an unprecedented scale. Reading it is like flying on an airplane or losing your virginity.
Pretty title.......2000-05-20
Some of this is New Age babble of the most annoying sort, the usual concoction of pseudo science and nineteenth century vitalism. Ebert, who conducts the "conversations" with eight current New Age illuminati that form the bulk of the book, is a pretty fancy babble master himself, proving without half trying that he can speak pseudobabblese with the best of them. Consider this formulation as he converses with Rupert Sheldrake on page 46: "So your theory that information can be transmitted by these non-material morphic fields makes plausible a paradigm in which phenomena such as telepathy or ESP can be understood. Can you explain how your paradigm makes sense out of this type of phenomena?"
Note that Ebert is incorporating into his talk scientific-sounding terminology shorn of any scientific meaning. It's a sort of sly of mouth that lends a "scientific" gloss to the babbling. Ebert's "non-material morphic fields" (from Sheldrake), for example, sounds good since we have "field theory" in physics. Sheldrake chimes in with talk of "fields of perception." Note especially, however, the killer word "paradigm." For the last couple of decades or so, one way to test a book's BS content has been to count the number of times the word "paradigm" appears. Once every ten pages or so is tolerable. More than that should start your BS-detector to crackling. New Age babblers never use the word "construct" or "idea" or such a phrase as "body of knowledge" when they can throw in "paradigm" instead. In general they like to spice up their discourse with a plethora of scientific sounding words and phrases such as "psychokinetic influence," "fusion," "quantum events," "cultural hybrids," etc., as Ebert and Sheldon do on, for example, page 48. On pages 94 and 95, in the space of nine sentences, Ebert manages to use the New Age shibboleth "resonance" six times.
There's also the patterning of words to imitate a reasoned discourse, a weighing and choosing of plausibilities as though weighing evidence or comparing experimental results. Thus Sheldrake says on page 47, "...[S]ome...phenomena of parapsychology are hard to explain from the point of view of morphic fields and morphic resonance. For example, anything to do with precognition or premonition doesn't fit into an idea of influences just coming in from the past. So, I don't think this is going to give a blanket explanation of all parapsychological phenomena, but I think it's going to make some of it, at least, seem normal rather than paranormal." Notice how this mumbo jumbo makes it seem like something is being explained. Not all of this is annoying, thankfully. The conversation with psychedelic guru Terence McKenna is interesting and invigorating, and the chat with Deepak Chopra is uplifting and admirable, which is what New Age thought in general tries to be. The New Age movement itself, which is easy to make fun of (it takes itself so seriously, I can't resist), is actually a noble enterprise engaged in trying to free us from the shackles of antiquated religions and the limitations of scientific materialism. The New Age in fact is a new religion in the making. In view of the stupidity and intolerance of some world religions, this is a welcome development. The problem is that many New Age apostles in skirting scientific materialism, skirt the scientific method as well. Much of the conversation in this book wants to substitute pronouncements for trial and error experiments. Thus Sheldrake can postulate morphic fields and morphic resonance, and continue on as though such notions had been experimentally verified and independently confirmed. And the terrible thing is I really don't think a lot of the New Agers really know the difference between asserting something and presenting an idea in a scientifically verifiable manner. Ebert is perhaps aware of this criticism because on page 92 he pays considerable homage to the scientific method, but then continues on as if it didn't matter.
In short, this book has a beautiful title, but it's a little after the fact since quantum mechanics killed the clockwork god a long time ago. Instead we have the god who plays dice, a much more sophisticated god who can Be or Not Be in the twinkling of a probability function. To find out more about this god we need the kind of speculation sometimes found in New Age thinking, but more than that we need the scientific method, a process that Ebert and friends would prefer to ignore.
Dreadful.......2000-04-17
An unbelievably pretentious and boring polemic on a less than fresh subject. A waste of time for any other than the dryest and dullest of academicians.
Average customer rating:
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Atlantis Music Conference & Festival Rock Compilation AND 99X & Pontiac Garage Rock Compilation 2007 (Audio - 2 CD set)
To Whom, Stand Alone, Keith Varon, Modern Skirts, Civil Twilight, Tony Bahu, East End Lights, Sun Domingo, Paris Luna, Fervor, No Conviction, Eric Skelton, Mike Dunn, Stealing Jane, TX/RX, Typhoid Mary, Friends for Hir Various Artists - Stereophile
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: B000WKICUI |
Product Description
Audio CD, 2 CD set, 26 tracks.
Product Description
Famous stories reprinted from great old 1930's pulp magazine.
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The Twilight That Never Ends And Other Stories
Bela Sarkar
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1419652192
Release Date: 2007-01-08 |
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A collection of short stories and poetry.
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Twilight's End
Jerry Oltion
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S9KPLW |
Book Description
The Sacred Desert is a fascinating and original work, which reflects on the role of the desert in theology, history, literature, art and film.Engaging with figures as diverse as Jesus, the early Christian Desert Fathers, William Blake, T.E. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Georgia O 'Keeffe, Wim Wenders, Bill Viola, and Jim Crace, author David Jasper explores deserts as real places, as interior spaces and as they feature in numerous texts. He makes connections across millennia of desert texts, meditating on the mystical, religious and theological meanings that emerge. Underlying these interdisciplinary wanderings in the wasteland is the author 's quest for a new form of religious thought and language. Lively and lucid, this outstanding work stretches from the Bible - perhaps still the greatest of our desert texts - through to contemporary experiences of the desert. It is truly an original work of theology, and a captivating journey through the history of religion.
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The Sacred Desert: Religion, Literature, Art, and Culture.(Book Review): An article from: Theological Studies
David J. Leigh
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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Binding: Digital
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Release Date: 2006-03-21 |
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This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 448 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Sacred Desert: Religion, Literature, Art, and Culture.(Book Review)
Author: David J. Leigh
Publication:
Theological Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 67
Issue: 1
Page: 225(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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