Customer Reviews

Philosophy Made Simple

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rudy Harrington's offbeat approach to his post-midlife crisis makes for an engaging read. Rudy's wife has been dead for seven years, his three daughters are grown and he has worked for thirty-some years as a wholesale produce manager in Chicago. On a whim he buys an avocado grove in Texas, never mind that he knows zip about raising avocados, and sets about creating a new life guided by a slender book one of his daughters gives him called Philosophy Made Simple. Along the way, Rudy meets some surprising people, acquires an elephant named Norma Jean with a penchant for painting and hosts his daughter's Hindu wedding. I just wish I'd been invited to the ceremony.

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!

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.

When Hellenga outsells Michael Crichton I will have hope for our future. Rudy's quest for meaning in his everyday life through reading classic philosophy is the story. Only Hellenga can write a novel about a widower, (the father of Margot from "Sixteen Pleasures")who moves to Texas to buy an Avocado ranch. Only he can make the "elephant in the room" a real Indian Elephant and a significant character. Combine a new and exotic love, an Indian wedding and a storm and we get to learn about the role of religion and the truly solitary nature of being, even in the midst of love and family.

Seven years have passed since Rudy Harrington's beloved spouse Helen died leaving him alone to raise their teenage daughters. However, now that each of his children has left, the sexagenarian decides to sell his Chicago empty nest home that he owned for three decades and buy an avocado grove in Texas.

At the same time he makes his life move, Rudy is reading Philosophy Made Simple by Siva Singh, the uncle of his daughter Molly's fiancé. The book makes Rudy ponder about life and death and beauty and truth even as he plans Molly's wedding to TJ. His grove manager and new friend Mecardo takes Rudy on pleasure trips to Mexico where he meets Maria, who gives him a different view on life at the same time his family and that of TJ begin the invasion of Texas for the bi-cultural wedding.

PHILOSOPHY MADE SIMPLE is actually a complex character driven tale as perspectives switch constantly so that the audience can keenly see how different cultures and people define truth, beauty, life and death. What is interesting is the multifaceted comparisons for instance Rudy vs. late-night radio evangelists that make the tale poignant. Readers who appreciate a deep look at concepts from varying points of view will want to join Rudy's search for meaning sort of mindful of Supertramps' The Logical Song.

Harriet Klausner

This book flowed along most easily, and there were many places where I stopped and give good pause for thought. Given the title, that's to be expected. But it lacked impact near the end and I just can't classify this as anything beyond mediocre in many respects. Still, an enjoyable read for those trying to understand life "thus far" from mid-life vantage point. This book just takes the right reader and is not intended for everyone.

There is something about Robert Hellenga's writing that I just love and Philosophy Made Simple is no exception. This is the story of Rudy Harrington, Margot's (from The Sixteen Pleasures) father and it takes place at roughly the same time. Rudy, 60, a widower, with three grown daughters wanders around his empty house in Chicago and feels the ghosts and the aimlessness of his present existence. After being given a book called Philosophy Made Simple which was written by the uncle of his daughter, Molly's fiancee he begins to question life and its meaning:

"Rudy didn't say anything to the girls about his vision, because he he was trying to understand it himself. After Christmas, after everyone had gone, he sat down in Helen's study and reread the first chapter of Philosophy Made Simple. He was trying to figure out what had happened to him on Christmas Eve. he was looking for a passage in which Uncle Siva-- TJ's uncle Siva-- quotes Socrates'
comparison of the soul to a bird , he underlined it: for a man who beholds the beauty of this world will sometimes be reminded of true beauty, and his wings will begin to grow and he will desire to spread his wings and fly upward, and because he gazes upward, like a bird, and cares nothing for the world below, he will be considered, mad."

Rudy then makes a radical decision and sells his house in Chicago and buys and avocado grove in Texas where he meets all kinds of characters like his ranch foreman, Merdado and the Russian who lives next door to him who owns an elephant named Norma Jean. Norma Jean just happens to be a painting elephant and Rudy loves her paintings and so he buys them for the rooms of his new house:

"Then he and Merdado unpacked the books and shelved them at random: Rudy didn't care. He could sort them out later. Right now he wanted to see what the room would look like full of books. It looked beautiful. The finishing tousch was Golden Flower and Jade Tree, another Norma Jean, which Rudy hung between the two deep set windows on the north wall. It was a beautiful room, a serious room where serious thinking could be done.
If Rudy and Merdardo had been speaking English they would soon have exhausted their supply of conversation, but in Spanish things took time, and the beer and the fatigue made Rudy less self-conscious. In Spanish he was a different person --more relaxed, less impatient. Time slowed down in Spanish. A simple story about something that had happened on the market, which would take two minutes to tell in English, would take him fifteen minutes in Spanish. And there were topics he and Medardo would probably have avoided in English: Rudy's Philosophical project or quest for example. Rudy couldn't imagine giving an account of it in English, but in Spanish it seemed easy to explain to Merdardo what he was trying to accomplish, as if he were spending Monopoly money instead of real money: to get some answers to the big questions to settle on a rule of life."

Hellenga has a way of unfolding a story, slowly and patiently and letting the reader savor the feel of Rudy's life in Texas. You get to enjoy the meals he prepares of pan-fried steak and bosc pears, to enjoy the feel the Rio Grande as it encircles his body as he floats down the river and to feel his anxiety as he plans a wedding for his daughter Molly.

It is a lovely little read with the feel that there is something grander under the surface. I know that I will be pondering it for sometime and feel propelled to read my final Hellenga, The Italian Lover.

Interesting story about an elderly man trying to find happiness. He moves from Chicago to a Texas avocado farm. While there he tries to come to terms with his wife's affair and her death. He is also trying to reconnect with his daughters who are angry about him selling their childhood home. He forms many new friendships. The most notable is with an elephant that paints. I LOVE elephants, from my days as a zoo volunteer with "love connection" (the elephant estrus study). Reading about the intelligence of the elephant was interesting.

At 60 years of age and a widower, Rudy quests for meaning in his everyday life after receiving a basic philosophy book as a gift. A former Chicago produce merchant, Rudy has started to question God, Life, the Universe and all the accompanying "whys?" which start to rise to the surface as we approach the final chapters of life. So, he decides to be bold, and move to Texas to purchase an avacado ranch. It is there that he meets some wonderful characters who aid him in his quest, from Norma Jean, the oil-painting elephant, to a new and exciting love who happens his way. Combined with his daugher's Hindu wedding and a Texas-sized storm - he realizes the importance and impermanence of change. Rudy's questions are answered through his labyrinth of life - not only with the aid of this motley crew of family, friends, and of course, Norma Jean - but through the insights garnered along the way through his trusty little manual entitled, "Philosophy Made Simple". The ancient and modern philosophers help Rudy along the way with their knowledge and wisdom which so perfectly fits the events in his new adventurous life. Hellenga is a very talented writer - warm and engaging- which helps to make his novel so sweet and lovely. In the end, readers - and Rudy - realize that in reality, life is a solitary journey. It's a journey filled with profound ponderings in which we try to understand the unique symbolism of the events which populate our own individual life. I strongly recommend this book for anyone - especially boomers - who are also seeking answers to their questions, and then subsequently questioning their answers!

A delightful story of a man who has reached retirement age but who launches himself into space with no safety net, yet he (sort of) lands on his feet. Quite unmoored from his background, he nonetheless has enough of a sense of self to make friends, new loves, and adventure where he has never gone before. The end is elegiac, but that may just be me: I'm a sucker for romantic endings.