7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, August 1, 2008
This review is from: Brave Souls: Writers and Artists Wresstle with God, Love, Death, and the Things That Matter (Paperback)
I first encountered this book about a decade ago in a course called Faith Quests RS 100C. During the course of the term we had about a dozen books to read. From this volume each student had to select two of the people profiled and present a seminar using this book as the beginning point and doing further research. I personally loved the book, and read not only the profiles we needed to have prepared for seminars but the whole volume. I even gave away a few copies. The sad part is that the book is now out of print because Stoddart went under a few years ago.
Todd, a long time writer and columnist for the Vancouver Sun, created the book by doing a series of interviews and then crafting those pieces into this volume. He breaks the Participants into four categories: The Atheists, The Doubters, The New Ancients and Emerging Mystics. The people profiled in each group are:
The Atheists
o Mordeccai Richler
o W.P. Kinsella
o Bill Reid
o Jane Rule
o Robert Munsch
The Doubters
o John Irving
o Paul Verhoeven
o Laurence Gough
o Evelyn Lau
o Wade Davis
o Douglas Coupland
The New Ancients
o Lynn Johnston
o Susan Aglukark
o Ann Copeland
o Tony Hillerman
o Robertson Davies
Emerging Mystics
o Timothy Findley
o Peter C. Newman
o Robert Bly
o Robert Fulghum
o Sylvia Fraser
o Loreena McKennitt
o Farley Mowat
o Barry Lopez
o Nick Bantock
o Alex Coville
o Carol Shields
This book was great for a number of different reasons. They include the fact that many of these people are famous - or infamous in the way these profiles present them in a new and different light. Also some of them have since passed away and the interviews done for this book will have been among some of their last, and maybe most in-depth in regards to their religious and spiritual views. It is truly a pity it is out-of-print, which makes it all the more worth tracking down.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Skilfull and fascinating, April 22, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Brave Souls: Writers and Artists Wresstle with God, Love, Death, and the Things That Matter (Paperback)
By Carolyn Purden, Toronto Star
Moral issues, ethical concerns and spiritual matters are themes in the work of many contemporary North American writers, singers, painters and sculptors. Religious imagery and symbolism abound.
Yet how much do these themes and literary devices reflect the artists' beliefs?
This is the question posed by Douglas Todd, author of The Soul-Searcher's Guide to the Galaxy.
In Brave Souls, he questions 28 artists about their work and the philosophy and beliefs central to their lives. The eclectic group includes film director Paul Verhoeven, sculptor Bill Reid, cartoonist Lynn Johnston, Inuk singer Susan Aglukark and writer Carol Shields.
Nearly all attended worship in their youth, and a few still attend occasionally. But all are troubled by religious orthodoxy and their spiritual search is taking place outside institutional religion.
Their responses provide a range of spiritual insights that Todd groups in four sections: the atheists; the doubters; the new ancients, whose faith is rooted in organized religion, and the emerging mystics.
Some common themes emerge. Johnston speaks for several artists when she says she cannot accept Christ's divinity. "I'm starting to see other people as divine, too -- such as saints and exceptional people," she says.
Many artists echo Shields' belief in the centrality of love.
"It's your basic molecule," she comments. "Why else would we make an effort to be sort of good in the world and with one another, if it weren't for this kind of mystical connection that holds us together?"
Robertson Davies, interviewed shortly before his death, talked of his lifetime interest in the Christian heresy of Gnosticism, which led him to a belief in God's feminine aspect. Singers Susan Aglukark and Bruce Cockburn reveal they have continuing conversations with God.
Timothy Findley has felt the presence of God in the vast Arctic barrens.
Writer Laurence Gough says he experienced the presence of God while keeping a deathbed vigil. Of his stepfather's death, Gough recalls "a real sense of rustling in the air -- a sense he had risen up out of himself, of something leaving him when he died. And not just life itself. but something far more powerful than that."
Todd has skilfully culled the essence of each artist's beliefs. It all makes fascinating, and, at times, thought-provoking reading.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly readable and provocative, May 15, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Brave Souls: Writers and Artists Wresstle with God, Love, Death, and the Things That Matter (Paperback)
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to talk with John Irving at a dinner party? Wouldn't it be fun to run into the likes of Timothy Findley at the Second Cup and be able to ask him what inspires his writing and what he thinks about the meaning of it all? Most of us are unlikely to have sucn encounters. However, in the spirit of our age of virtual reality, Douglas Todd has provided us with the next best thing. In Brave Souls, he offers interviews with 28 of North America's most intriguing and artistic souls. Patricia Murphy, Catholic Register
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