10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very fun little book, June 14, 2006
Philosophy Made Simple is a nice little read, very pleasant and a little poignant. The plot if amply described in other reviews, so I'll add just a few quick non-plot thoughts about this book.
First, it is very pleasant. No points are belabored, the prose is clean, simple and straightforward. As Mark Twain said about his own works (perhaps not accurately!) this book has not a single word more than it needs. It is refreshing to read a book that strives to communicate a weighty philosophical point of view that is so unassuming.
As to the philosophical point... I almost wish that the book gave me a little more help along the way. I felt that each chapter tried to make a philosophical point by demonstrating it in the story rather than beating you over the head with it, which I appreciated, but I frequently finished a chapter feeling like whatever it was I was supposed to come away with... I had missed.
Until the end. At the end, all of a sudden, kind of out of the blue, the philosophy is laid out in all its naked glory. The revelation is made and all the strands come together. It is an interesting philosophy, and the road to it is very pleasant to stroll along. I would have liked a few more signposts along the way!
But none of this is to complain. I liked the book a lot and while I wouldn't say it leads to major revelation it was fun to read, exceedingly pleasant, and in the end provided a point of view that I happen to embrace very much - which was nice!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Getting ready to live is easier than actually living", May 23, 2006
Philosophy Made Simple is a strange and difficult book to categorize. Author Robert Hellenga fuses elements of multiculturalism, religion, Eastern mysticism, love of family - and an eccentric painting elephant - into a warm-hearted story of one man's journey of self-discovery. It's not easy having a midlife crisis - sixty-year-old retiree Rudy Harrington, knows this better than anyone. His wife died several years ago, and since then Rudy has been drifting.
Rudy still lives in the ramshackle family house, but his three daughters have long since moved on. Meg, the oldest, has a law degree, and two kids; the middle girl Molly teaches social dancing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Margot, the youngest, is a book conservator who has gone to Italy on the spur of the moment. Rudy recognizes that at his age there aren't many chapters left. What has happened to his life? Where had it all gone?
Life has always had a way of sneaking up on Rudy and catching him by surprise, and he's the first to admit that over the years his relationship with his daughters has been somewhat troubled and taciturn. Now, however, Rudy is sure it is time to move on and to let go, "it's as though he were sprouting wings, big golden wings, wings intent to carry him out of the past into the future, wherever he needed to go."
Rudy makes a snap decision to sell the house - and accompanied by 15th edition of a student handbook called Philosophy Made Simple, written by her boyfriend's uncle, the philosopher Siva Singh - he moves to Texas, where he buys a dusty avocado grove on the edges of the Rio Grande. But the move from selling avocadoes at a Chicago produce market to actually growing them comes at a price; he gets a gets a terrible case of cold feet, swamped at the last minute by buyer's remorse. His old life constantly calls out to him, "presenting itself to his imagination in warm and rich colours."
Rudi's hesitations don't last long. Salvation eventually arrives in the form of a rich and eccentric cast of characters that start to orbit, slowly picking up the pieces of his fractured existence. There's the Mexican grove manager who teaches him to enjoy life - particularly wine, women and song; an ego-centric Hindu holy man who educates Rudy in Eastern mysticism; and a kindly flower shop owner who tells him that he's looking for "the right touch on life," the embrace of a woman, and he has "a world full of love," particularly the love of his three exquisite daughters.
Nevertheless, it is mostly though caring for the benevolent elephant Norma Jean that Rudi learns the most about life and love. Owned by a Russian "whose name Rudy can never pronounce," Norma Jean's an excellently disposed elephant - kind, friendly, big-hearted barrel-shaped and very fragrant, and her ways begin to unexpectedly transform Rudy from a somewhat irascible and introverted man into a person who is perhaps capable of finally finding love again.
Norma Jean enables Rudy to be his own man, his own boss, and to eventually live his own life. Rudy's journey is one of courage and wisdom, a never-ending quest to explore the profound mysteries of human existence. His heartache is both physical and emotional - he continues to be haunted by Helen's affair, the incident almost undermining their marriage. This heart-piercing ache for Helen's forgiveness, however painful, is the central experience of Rudy's life and he must come to terms with this. No one - not Aristotle, Epicurus not Siva Singh - can ever convince him otherwise.
Hellenga cleverly weaves philosophical principles into Rudy's life journey, peppering the story with potted extracts from Kant, Epicurus, and Descartes. The author filters meaning through Rudy's perception of the world around him, mining the topography of Rudy's inner personality. A sudden heart attack forces him to confront his own mortality, providing the catalyst for a reconnection with his daughters, especially the young Molly and her Indian fianc.
As Rudy begins to fall in love for a second time he must put to rest the fears that were bred in isolation, and begin to enjoy life again. Equally uplifting and poignant - with a touch of the zany and wacky thrown in for good measure - Philosophy Made Simple is part cherished family saga and part treatise on the meaning of life. The novel is also a colorful fabric of a life not yet lived to the fullest, an incisive portrait of an aging man knotted together by his own past, yet frightened to face an uncertain future.
Rudy must put aside everything he knows about the certainly of death, the untrustworthiness of the senses, and his failure to validate his earlier visions. Throughout the novel he learns that life is a painful process - youth grows old, love grows old - and the journey is never as liberating as we anticipate. Conversely, he also learns that in order to be truly happy, he must let the bright colour of his new life wash over him and let himself "be ravished by its beauty." Mike Leonard May 06.
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