Customer Reviews

Toolbox

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book about 12 tools deserves 12 stars, but only 5 are available. Each tool turns out to have a different personality, ingeniously described, with both wit and passion. In fact, if anybody wanted to set up a new zodiac system, these 12 analyses of personality would be the easiest way to do it. It's rare to find a book so clever and insightful.

This book's a beauty, three times over. The content is really wise, the layout of the book itself is most attractive, and, last but not least, the translation is as smooth and subtle as silk. A winner on all three accounts!

This is a sensational book, in the best sense of the words. Beautifully presented, intellectually stimulating, it opens your eyes to everyday objects in a way you will not be able to predict. This Morabito fellow has got to be the Borges of today.

A work of genius, delightful, and exquisitely translated by Geoff Hargreaves. You can also find some of Morabitos's work and Hargreaves' translations in TAMEME.

Fabio will best be remembered for his pictures on romance covers and for his own crisp style of prose, not to mention his dynamite jazz album that "mysterious"ly went out of print...guess Miles and Thelonis couldn't compete... even so, I am puzzled by Fabio's new direction. Some of these essays are profound, and I am not sure how a man of Fabio's genius has remained undiscovered for so long. Yet even so, I was not impressed with his ultimate conclusion on the meaning of life. He was right when he said "life is romance" and he should have left it at that.

I'm really impressed by the author's ability to look at something as commonplace as a hammer or a file and find in it a source for real insight into human behavior, because that's what happens--the 12 tools turn out to be 12 types of people. Morabito's intelligence leaves me feeling sorta dumb. And envious!

This is a rare, weird, exceptional sort of book that will entrance the rare, weird, exceptional sort of reader. It sure got me!

It's not many Hispanic writers that translate so well into English. This writer does. I can't find any other books by him, but they must exist, as this one has all the polish of an accomplished writer.

Morabito gives his reader an intensvie lesson in personification and philosophy through an investigation into the nature of tools. He creates a character for each tool based upon its physical attributes. In the process of developing the characters, he includes explanatory remarks which develop a philosophical backing for the actions and purpose of each tool. "The Toolbox" offers a unique investigation into objects normally overlooked as mundane; the reader is encouraged to look again at the simple objects within everyday environments to see if they are really as simple as they appear.

The abstraction to personification has a long ancestry in literature: from the bible, to Romance of the Rose, to this book of tools. So what is exceptional about Toolbox is not what Morabito does, but instead how [darn] well he does it. I could not read this book in one setting - it was far too rich for that. And I can see that for many years I will be returning to this book for that lemon twist taste on life. The hard cover edition makes a great coffee-table book, ensuring the regular attention it deserves. The only aspect of the hard cover edition which didn't appeal to me was the lame graphics (some of which can be seen on the cover). The graphics are not by Morabito and I found them a great waste of space and a boring two-dimensional accompaniment for such outstanding writing. I would have preferred to have seen some photography to match the quality of the text. Photographs may push up the price, but the writing commands excellence and it is a shame to see it brought down by ordinary graphics. I can appreciate that as a rule, the graphics should not up-stage the text, but you're not dealing with ordinary text here.
I also felt the justified text format was at times annoying.
Nevertheless, one of my most treasured purchases.