Customer Reviews

At Home in the World

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The title of this selection of articles by the late Daniel Pearl has been taken from a theater essay by the playwright Arthur Miller entitled "The Family in Modern Drama." Miller describes the role of a family's breadwinner, whom he envisions as a traditional paterfamilias, as making the world just as familiar and comfortable a home as his immediate family environment. Dan Pearl succeeded notably in that enterprise, writing with professional detachment, objectivity, elegance, humor, and a tincture of scholarship about the ironies of the human condition in far-flung, exotic places - India, where cows may be sacred but leather goods are manufactured; Iran, whose youths may publicly spout anti-American slogans but scheme to obtain in, say, Turkey, a U.S. visa "to study, perchance to stay" - an allusion to Hamlet's "to sleep, perchance to dream"; even Kosovo, where "genocide" turned out to be "small acts of intimate barbarity." Throughout his educative articles, which he honed until he heard the sentences "sing," Dan Pearl exhibits the total lack of malice, the calm and perceptive gaze, and the disinclination to histrionics for which his father justly praises him in a prefatory eulogy. The articles fit perfectly what the book's jacket calls the Journal's "iconic middle column," and together they constitute a lasting tribute to their late author.

Being an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade, the tragic loss of Daniel Pearl struck me hard even though I couldn't ever recall associating his name with a specific article. "At Home in the World" is an excellent collection of writings exemplifying the in-depth--yet sometimes quirky--reporting like that often found in the middle column of the Journal's front page. They're my favorite articles: almost always interesting; so well-written. Since I actually remembered some of the stories, perhaps I've been a fan of Mr. Pearl's all along.

I like the way this book is organized: six parts, each one highlighting a literary style or theme infused with interesting facets of Mr. Pearl's life and personality (Editor Helene Cooper provides some insightful anecdotes at the beginning). For example, Part Four ("Finding the Potholes ...") reveals his propensity for delving deep into the fabric of a society to get an unexpected story; Part Two ("I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music") plays off of his love for music ... all music. The writings in each part are presented pretty much (occasional exceptions) in reverse chronological order, so that his work from WSJ stints in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., London, and India are kept together. The fifty articles range in length from two to eleven pages, lending themselves well to intermittent reading when time is tight. I don't imagine every article will be of interest to all readers, so there's the option of covering everything or just picking out what you consider interesting (I chose the former). The book got better as I went along, with Part Six ("Nice Lede!") being the most entertaining. The Appendix articles from the North Adams Transcript are hilarious.

This book should appeal especially to Journal fans and those who love reading (learning) about diverse subjects from many worlds. I would also recommend this for anyone who wants to explore truly human topics that aren't offered on a daily basis by the news media.

i highly recommend this book if you love the printed word, if you love reading about other cultures , if you love anecdotes about life in America. I bought this book last year but put it away until i wasnt so upset by Daniel Pearl's torture and murder. If you want to honor Daniel Pearl and even honor yourself by enlightening your world, i highly recommend this book. Wonderful articles! I wish i had known of his work before he was kidnapped and murdered..such a shame but he lives on in this fine book!

I bought this to see what Daniel Pearl was all about after his tragic death. I'm so glad I did. It makes me wish I'd known him. Kudos to the people who chose and organized the articles - it's a wonderful tribute.

Wait - those of you who haven't read this yet, please don't get the wrong idea! - just because I'm being sentimental about it doesn't mean that the book requires you to be. The articles in here are so worth reading by anyone, for any reason - please pick it up and see what you learn about the world.

The title of this selection of articles by the late Daniel Pearl has been taken from a theater essay by the playwright Arthur Miller entitled "The Family in Modern Drama." Miller describes the role of a family's breadwinner, whom he envisions as a traditional paterfamilias, as making the world just as familiar and comfortable a home as his immediate family environment. Dan Pearl succeeded notably in that enterprise, writing with professional detachment, objectivity, elegance, humor, and a tincture of scholarship about the ironies of the human condition in far-flung, exotic places - India, where cows may be sacred but leather goods are manufactured; Iran, whose youths may publicly spout anti-American slogans but scheme to obtain in, say, Turkey, a U.S. visa "to study, perchance to stay" - an allusion to Hamlet's "to sleep, perchance to dream"; even Kosovo, where "genocide" turned out to be "small acts of intimate barbarity." Throughout his educative articles, which he honed until he heard the sentences "sing," Dan Pearl exhibits the total lack of malice, the calm and perceptive gaze, and the disinclination to histrionics for which his father justly praises him in a prefatory eulogy. The articles fit perfectly what the book's jacket calls the Journal's "iconic middle column," and together they constitute a lasting tribute to their late author.

Daniel Pearl will always be a name synonymous with the threat and pain derived from Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. This book is not the lasting legacy he deserves. It has numerous grammatical, typographic, and punctuation errors. It is disorganized and lacks coherence.

At the start of each chapter there is a short essay by Helene Cooper explaining something about the talented writer; his meticulous reporting, attention to detail, willingness to travel, unending curiosity and a host of other adjectives that one would expect from such a young and talented writer. Each one of these introductions seeks to give Daniel a personality. Some of them are more successful than others. There should be longer articles about Daniel, not just a collection of his published stories. Indeed, these introductions paint a misleading picture of the following Pearl stories because the stories seem randomly thrown together. A couple of consecutive stories may support Ms. Cooper's opening remarks, but the following ones will be on completely different topics that seem, at best, arbitrarily placed.

The foreword by his father is touching, as is the foreword by his wife. His stories are quirky, informative, and worth reading, although many of them are timely. Overall it is a book worth reading to see the brilliance of his career. But Ms. Cooper does not do his work justice. If she was an artist this would be a fuzzy Polaroid shot of Daniel Pearl. There are no distinct features, but his characteristics are almost revealed through his writings.