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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as bad as everybody thinks, July 18, 2002
Well, I ordered this book before I read all the reviews here, and I kicked myself after reading them. Not because of the book, but because I had just written a letter to Richard, not knowing of the divorce, and hinted at questions I'm sure he won't want to answer. The book isn't nearly as bad as some people here led me to believe. It is a short story, and should have been presented as a short story, but I wasn't left hanging, as some people were. I think it stands ok as it is. Maybe my perceptions were lowered enough by some of the scathing reviews, that it was easy to find it better than some people thought. It seems to me that it's too easy for some people to point fingers and shout, "Rip Off", with no attempt at understanding or empathy. Might it have occurred to them that maybe there's a reason this book is the way it is? That's certainly true of all his other books. I tried Richard's website too late; it had been shut down, so I missed what might have been said there. After doing some online research, it seems painfully obvious to me that, whatever the circumstances of the divorce, it must have been pretty rough; it seems evident that both Richard and Leslie agreed to keep the details personal, even to the exclusion of any mention of Leslie, or "Bridge Across Forever", in a recent interview for AOPAPilot. It seems plausible to me that he was driven back into seclusion by harsh criticism, just as he dismissed himself from the "Illusions" forum on CompuServe many years ago. Indeed, even in one past interview online, Leslie's face was obviously removed from a group photo. It's easy to imagine that a stipulation of the divorce is that it not be publicized. Of course, that's disconcerting to all of us that have been allowed to share in so many personal details of Richard's life in the past. But you know what? This his HIS LIFE, people; ease up. We're not entitled to anything; we should consider ourselves lucky he's still writing at all. People forget that Richard often said that he hates the act of writing, that he has to be driven to it by ideas that demand to be exposed. They also forget what a private person he can be, and how awkward it is for him at times, to have millions of people know all the personal details he shares, to the point where they feel that they have some kind of right to criticize him, or tell him what they think he should do, or what he should have done. So, "Out of My Mind" is short; so it disappointed some people who were expecting another "One" or "Running from Safety" or "Illusions". I prefer to think it was what Richard intended it to be, and maybe we should try to figure that out. Isn't that what books are for?
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32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
AIRPLANES, PARALLEL UNIVERSES, BUT NO LESLIE!, July 20, 2000
I'm a year behind all of the controversy about Richard Bach's OUT OF MY MIND. If I had read the reviews before getting the book, I probably wouldn't have purchased it. I'm glad, however, that I did. I can certainly understand why so many people were upset about Bach's new novel. Well, it actually isn't a novel. It's more like a twenty-five page short story, expanded to look longer than it really is. Also, the story is open-ended. There is no actual ending to it, but rather what appears to be the preparation of future things to come. Last, there is no Leslie Parrish in this book. Not even a mention of her. I wasn't aware that Richard and Leslie had divorced until I read the previous reviews. Like most fans of Richard Bach, I,too, was surprised by this and began to wonder if it is possible for anyone to have a happy, successful, long-term marriage. I mean, if soul mates can't do it, what chance does the rest of us have? Anyway, as to the story itself, I can see where a lot of people would find nothing useful in it. Mr. Bach has talked about "parallel universes" in some of his other books on a much more interesting level. There wasn't really anything new here that would capture the imagination of most readers...that is, unless the reader had also had similar experiences. For the last several years, I have visited a college town in my dream state that has beautiful oak trees lining both sides of the street, as well as a multitude of wonderful bookstores. I meet people on the street that I seem to know, and shop in the bookstores, finding new novels by some of my favorite authors. I as walk through the town, I feel like I'm finally home. The only catch here is that I have never been to this town in my awakened state, nor do I actually know any of the people I meet in the dream. Even worse, my favorite authors in the dream state don't exist outside of that realm. I have no idea where this town has come from, or why I dream about it so often ( probably around two dozen times so far). No one has been able to give me a satisfying answer to this question. I know that I experience an extreme sense of peace while visiting this place in my sleep, and that it carries over into my awakened state for at least half of the following day. OUT OF MY MIND has given me some food for thought about this unusual experience. I know that some of the leading scientists of the past century have expressed the possibility of parallel universes existing. Whether the scientists (Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkings, & Kip Thorne) are correct is a question that may be answered in the future. Whether we can access a parallel universe, if one does exist, is another question in itself. And finally, what is real and what is simply one's imagination? I don't know the answer to that. What I do know is that I immensely enjoyed Bach's book for this particular story line. It touched something deep inside of me, and now I'm more determined than ever before to find out something about this reoccuring dream of mine. I don't know if Mr. Bach wrote OUT OF MY MIND for the money, or if he really had something important that he wanted to say. I would like to think the positive, and I would like to read more books concerning his visits to the Saunders-Vixen airplane facility. If one looks at the universe through the eyes of a child, anything is possible...maybe even the visiting of a parallel universe while one is sleeping. One last note, Mr. Bach has since closed down his web site. I wonder if it was because of too many angry E-mails about OUT OF MY MIND?
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less than stellar, October 7, 1999
By A Customer
This was by no means a bad book. The fact that it's short hardly means anything--Jonathan Livingston Seagull isn't much longer. The fact that it is on the surface a very simple story doesn't mean it's unimportant. After all, Illusions is, on the surface, equally simple. However, this is also not a very good book. It is dissapointing to me not just because I have loved Bach's books until now, but more because the idea, the story, had the potential to be VERY good. Once I was 10 pages into it, I expected great things the same way I found great things when Bach touched on a similar idea in One (when Richard and Leslie meet Tink and the others at the idea factory). When the book ended, I felt like the story was just in the beginning stages, and that was dissapointing. Bach's books have never been based on action, from my perspective. Rather, the great parts have been driven by the ideas that inspire the action that is there. Unfortunately, it seems as though he tries to do the opposite here and when he ran out of action, the book ended. Those who have read the book are justifiably saddened to have missed the rest of the story. That said, there was an excellent line in the book, one that was almost an aside, but one that I think every Bach fan can relate to and knows is the true theme of his stories (if there is in fact just one). Bach says he has long ago decided there is no such thing as "just my imagination." He understands that imagination is a wonderful tool for solving problems and discovering truth. He also understands (or so I believe) that imagination is a difficult thing to describe to someone else. I can't tell you the number of times I've been unable to explain to someone what I've thought about when my mind has been drifting, even though I know it's terribly important. If this book is truly a failure, it is not a failure of Bach's imagination, nor, I think, his intent. I simply believe that in this instance, for whatever reason, his skill at describing his imagination was not up to the task.
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