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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
Not a bad book! Kind of boring near the end, but overall it was a great book.
honestly couldn’t get into a rhythm while reading this. good concept but maybe it just wasn’t for me.
This book was in many ways an initial disappointment. Besides using white, affluent, and famous characters to unravel "character," it seemed like what Brooks' was describing as indelible attributes adhered to some relative moral standard. There seemed to be no case for "everyman" or the lowly who live out of struggle and mess. But the narrative changed, perhaps as Brooks moved through his source material, into a messier, vulnerable, haze of exploration. Character, so it seems, is made through tempering by the fire of life and may not always look like a checklist of the 10 Commandments. In fact, character is a process, a maze-like path moving in all angles where progress is slow. And overall, this mess is hopeful, because character doesn't become about perfection but about dynamic movement through life and through the healing processes inherent in community and in God's own frenetic yet constant redemption.
An interesting and thought-provoking, although flawed, exploration on what character means, and how one acquires it. Brooks writes spiritually biographical essays on Barbara Perkins, Dorothy Day, General Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Samuel Johnson, George Elliot and St. Augustine, people he feels exemplify the virtues of humility, service to others, spiritual struggle (read: the struggle against sin), rectitude and moral courage in a way that no contemporary apparently does. He presents these as long-lost, old-fashioned virtues, and spends a good deal of time admonishing us against the ills of the "me-generation", social media and soulless accomplishment. There's much to admire and to be inspired by in these pages. He paints wrestling for character as an attractive, and ennobling activity, if not a comfortable one, and you can't argue with that.
Brooks' scholarship is as broad as one would expect from someone with his credentials and it serves the work well. My discomfort came with his repeated insistence that one not trust one's inner voice, which, if I'm reading him correctly, he seems to equate with an immature, self-serving ego. However, he forgets that St. Ignatius of Loyola posited that one of the ways one makes contact with God, and discerns God's will, is through the Examen of Consciousness -- in essence a way of listening to the God-connected wisdom of one's soul. Brooks takes an 'either/or' position, rather than an 'and' position, which is off-putting and unfortunate. One can both devote one's life to serving the world, and to responding to what the world asks of one, as well as cultivating a healthy, indeed, deeply nourishing, relationship with one's intuition, or soul, as communicated through the senses, through dreams, and through intuitive knowing. John O'Donoghue has done wonderful work on this and I would be interested to know what Brooks might make of that. It felt like a gap in his knowledge-base.
As well, I think there are a number of more modern examples, such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Jean Vanier... that Brooks might have chosen to focus on. Doing so would have illustrated that God (you'll forgive the word if you find it too fraught, feel free to replace it with whatever you're more comfortable with) remains ever faithful to us.
The book reads with more of a curmudgeonly tone -- like one's well-educated uncle scolding the younger generation with all their flippery and narcissism -- than I suspect he intended, and it may put off readers. I hope it doesn't, because there is, as I said, much to be admired here, much to spark self-examination, and much to inspire.
Brooks' scholarship is as broad as one would expect from someone with his credentials and it serves the work well. My discomfort came with his repeated insistence that one not trust one's inner voice, which, if I'm reading him correctly, he seems to equate with an immature, self-serving ego. However, he forgets that St. Ignatius of Loyola posited that one of the ways one makes contact with God, and discerns God's will, is through the Examen of Consciousness -- in essence a way of listening to the God-connected wisdom of one's soul. Brooks takes an 'either/or' position, rather than an 'and' position, which is off-putting and unfortunate. One can both devote one's life to serving the world, and to responding to what the world asks of one, as well as cultivating a healthy, indeed, deeply nourishing, relationship with one's intuition, or soul, as communicated through the senses, through dreams, and through intuitive knowing. John O'Donoghue has done wonderful work on this and I would be interested to know what Brooks might make of that. It felt like a gap in his knowledge-base.
As well, I think there are a number of more modern examples, such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Jean Vanier... that Brooks might have chosen to focus on. Doing so would have illustrated that God (you'll forgive the word if you find it too fraught, feel free to replace it with whatever you're more comfortable with) remains ever faithful to us.
The book reads with more of a curmudgeonly tone -- like one's well-educated uncle scolding the younger generation with all their flippery and narcissism -- than I suspect he intended, and it may put off readers. I hope it doesn't, because there is, as I said, much to be admired here, much to spark self-examination, and much to inspire.
A very interesting book that shows the value of integrity and morality in form of portraits of (more or less) famous people like Eisenhower, Marshall, George Eliot or Saint Augustine.
It can sound very religiously driven at times, but is a good read nonetheless, as I believe what Christianity likes to sell as "Christian values" are actually human values, and are universal.
It can sound very religiously driven at times, but is a good read nonetheless, as I believe what Christianity likes to sell as "Christian values" are actually human values, and are universal.
There was a lot to like about this book, but I feel he got to wrapped up in a negative judeo-christian notion of sin. I get that was his point, really, but I don't feel like that's the only road to character and I felt turned off in the end. His point of view seems to require you believe in god, even though he doesn't seem to want to admit that.
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
While I am still chewing on this, I appreciate the writing and the argumentation. The profile of Augustine was worth the read in and of itself. I agree mostly with the diagnosis but am not sure about the cure. But that could be my biases. I appreciate the book, it made me think.
The premise for this book is that you need suffering in order to build character, and this is something I agree with. I think the most interesting people are the ones whom constantly challenge themselves to do better and never truly stop growing. A common misconception about this way of life is the notion that people who act in this fashion don't really appreciate or are grateful for what they currently have, which is far from the truth.
There's a clear distinction between appreciating what you have and still striving for more and simply striving for the sake of striving. Countless examples of the latter can be found in the 80-hour workweek zealots in Silicon Valley or the finance industry, whereas the former are scattered across countless disciplines.
The ordeals are what makes you experience the full breadth of human emotion, crushing through the basement of your soul only to find there's another room, as Brooks puts it in this book. Right, that's what this review was supposed to be about.
In my opinion Brooks deifies people whom have devoted their lives to service to a fault, destroying their own lives in the process. I can wholeheartedly agree that these people are exceptional, and have accomplished great things for others, but I would never trade places with any of them.
I would never abandon my own pursuit of a decent emotional and personal life to serve a greater cause to such an extent as the people Brooks discusses in this book. For instance, former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower had to be so duplicitous with his co-workers that after he died his wife literally said she didn't truly know the man - how is that an example worth following?
Yes, he certainly achieved a lot (he became the president of the US after all, when that wasn't such a bad thing) but at the cost of his own emotional life - his soul as it were.
I see nothing wrong with sacrificing for a greater cause than yourself, that's a very noble and worthy pursuit - but never at the devastation of your own values. Suffering builds character, but too much suffering borne in the name of a cause will eventually destroy you.
I think Brooks is on to something, but he took it way too far in my opinion.
There's a clear distinction between appreciating what you have and still striving for more and simply striving for the sake of striving. Countless examples of the latter can be found in the 80-hour workweek zealots in Silicon Valley or the finance industry, whereas the former are scattered across countless disciplines.
The ordeals are what makes you experience the full breadth of human emotion, crushing through the basement of your soul only to find there's another room, as Brooks puts it in this book. Right, that's what this review was supposed to be about.
In my opinion Brooks deifies people whom have devoted their lives to service to a fault, destroying their own lives in the process. I can wholeheartedly agree that these people are exceptional, and have accomplished great things for others, but I would never trade places with any of them.
I would never abandon my own pursuit of a decent emotional and personal life to serve a greater cause to such an extent as the people Brooks discusses in this book. For instance, former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower had to be so duplicitous with his co-workers that after he died his wife literally said she didn't truly know the man - how is that an example worth following?
Yes, he certainly achieved a lot (he became the president of the US after all, when that wasn't such a bad thing) but at the cost of his own emotional life - his soul as it were.
I see nothing wrong with sacrificing for a greater cause than yourself, that's a very noble and worthy pursuit - but never at the devastation of your own values. Suffering builds character, but too much suffering borne in the name of a cause will eventually destroy you.
I think Brooks is on to something, but he took it way too far in my opinion.