Customer Reviews

Climbing the Mountain Signed Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading Ragman's Son, I enthusiastically bought this book. The first few chapters are mind blowing. Then Douglas starts undergoing what psychologists call "Life Review" in his attempt to assess his life and find greater spiritual meaning.
It was great, but if you've read Ragman's Son, hardly any of it was new. I felt as if I was reading 80% of the first book. Still, its a good read, and Douglas writes of his quest to find his spiritual self in a manner that I think will appeal to people who do not have religion in their lives. I definetly reccomend this book if you consider religion or spirituality overrated, but also want to find a bigger meaning to your own life.
Don't let the word "spiritual" scare you away. Douglas doesn't get preachy, "holier than thou" or dogmatic. Most of his own life was spent without an attempt to understand his own religion or a spiritual understanding of the world around him, and he still has a practical outlook.
I chose to give this book 4 stars, but if you read Ragman's Son, the reptition could be a disappointment.

Kirk Douglas has become a member of my family by the sensitivity of his writing. I feel as if I have known him the entire 46 years I have been on earth. I recommend this book to all those that are downcast and feel that life has not been fair to them. Mr. Douglas invites you into his heart and bears his soul. If you feel you are down in the valley, you surely will climb the mountain to victory as you read every word he has to share. Reading this book brought a smile to my face, a tear in my eye and a song in my heart!!

When he was fourteen, Kirk Douglas left the religion of his childhood. Or did he? In his later years he came to realize that his view of the religion of his childhood was childish. Paul's famous lines to the Corinthians comes to mind: "When I was a child I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child."

Many of us dismissed our religious roots without really understanding or appreciating them. Douglas moved through the decades without looking back on that adolescent's decision to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater.' Serious encounters with his health and a near-death experience forced him to look again, which he did.

He learned, as we all must, that one's true religion, after all, is a function of experience. Early in life we think religion is a set of beliefs which are handed to us and either accepted or rejected, with little or no middle ground.

With encouragement from a rabbi, Douglas looked again at the old stories and to his surprise they had taken on new meaning and depth since his earlier reading. As Joseph Campbell would say, he found himself in those old stories; he came to realize that the stories are not about other people who lived 'way back when,' but about him, or you and me when we see ourselves in the stories.

The story he tells is like a myth in which we can see ourselves--an adolescent who leaves his religion, a man who works at his career, only to end up where he started, but to 'know the place for the first time,' as T. S. Eliot said.

I really enjoyed reading this autobiography. Kirk Douglas has had enough life and experience for his two autobiographies, and at the rate he is going, he'll have enough for a third!

Kirk is unafraid to let us into his weaknesses, his fears and desires. He doesn't let anything stop him. No stroke could steal his love of life away. His spirituality sustains him, and his sharing of it sustains us.

May he have long life.

I truly enjoyed this down to earth, yet inspirational and reflective writing. The book is easy to read, entertaining and has a lot of heart. I will look for others by Kirk Douglas.

Great book written by a wonderful man not afraid to share his deepest feelings. Easy reasd, holds your attention throughout.

After the helicopter accident in which he nearly lost his life, and two younger men who had not fully lived theirs did, Kirk Douglas came to reflect more deeply on his past and its meaning. This led him to begin learning and studying about the Jewish religion that he had been born into. Through this return he found a deeper and renewed meaning to his life.
This work is the sequel and continuation of his first autobiographical work 'Ragman's Son'. It is not as event-filled but makes up for this with its sincere reflectiveness. Douglas is a person of many talents, one of the great screen actors of America, and a person of great courage and determination.
He provides in this work a vivid example of how new meaning in life can be found by 'return' to the religious tradition in which one has been born.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as did several family members. I'm 60 years old and I must admit that I've learned more about Judaism from Spartacus than I ever did from my old Hebrew teachers and many various rabbis over the years. Read it and buy extra copies so that you can give them as gifts that will be appreciated by everyone. I've read the reviews that appear above and I must wonder if these intellectual reviewers are living in the same world as the rest of us are. The book is wonderful.

My family is from Amersterdam (author's home town) and my mother from Vitebsk (author's mother's home), so I have a special interest in anything that Kirk writes. The book is readable but parts of it look forced. It is not as compelling as Rag Man. Kirk has been through an ordeal and deserves a lot of credit for this effort.