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The Birth of Prudence Paperback – February 21, 2014
| Ryan Andrews (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
Enhance your purchase
- Print length225 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLulu.com
- Publication dateFebruary 21, 2014
- Dimensions5.98 x 0.57 x 9.02 inches
- ISBN-101312025247
- ISBN-13978-1312025240
Product details
- Publisher : Lulu.com; First Edition (February 21, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 225 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1312025247
- ISBN-13 : 978-1312025240
- Item Weight : 11.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.98 x 0.57 x 9.02 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,338,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #69,866 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Ryan Andrews lives in the Japanese countryside, with his wife, two kids, and their dog. A friendly Kodama or two have been known to take up residence in the giant acorn tree that shades the house. He works at his drawing desk in the early morning hours, to the sound of rummaging wild boar and badgers, who come from the surrounding forest seeking out shiitake mushrooms and fallen chestnuts.
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As assaults against against the West come from all directions, this books makes a good case for a healthy National/Occidental pride. I understand and agree with the need for people of European descent to protect and uphold their European heritage. If I may, even though there is some overlap in these terms ( a lot really!), I think it is a bit superficial to completely conflate the West and Whiteness.
Through accidents/actions of history, in some "Western" countries there are many citizens with over a century of presence and see their identity as "Western" due to their acceptance/assimilation of the Occidental mores and customs after many generations of living in these countries, and they may or may not share the genetics of the "founding stock" but would agree with many of the author's premises. Are they to be orphaned or co-opted? I do not know the answer, but it is a thought worth exploring.
The only awkward transition in this book is the abrupt turn in the relationship between Prudence and Mark when Mark begin to think of procreation. Per my comment above, it seems a bit unlikely than as a man who is captured by Prudence's beauty and erudition (and adherence to Western mores) Mark would think a half-white and half-Korean child would not inherit of the enough Western DNA and receive enough Western cultural rearing to make him/her as pro-Western as his parents or even more.
Over all good job by Mr. Andrews.
If I were ranking it based only on the writing, I'd have only given it three or maybe four stars, but the story and overall design surely deserves five stars.
This book takes on the National Question in fictional format. It centers around Mark-an American college student and his Korean love interest, Prudence. Prudence Suh has a great interest in Western Civilization and she introduces Mark to the classics of the West, such as ancient Greek literature.
The book's narrative follows the relationship between Mark and Prudence and includes dialogue of other characters. These other characters wrestle with the implications of the National Question in a series of conversations-it is not unlike Plato's Dialogues wherein complex philosophical ideas are explored through the give and take of an old time college bull session.
In the end, Mark realizes that he is of Western stock and comes to an awareness that the ideas of the Greeks, Romans, and other Westerners are not independent of the people who created it. His relationship with Prudence, who is an outsider looking in, is thus destroyed.
Having a Korean woman as a tempting marriage partner for an upwardly mobile protagonist is a good plot device to explore the ideas related to the National Question. Marriage is the essential institution to transmit civilization across time and this book may will be the first literary work which specifically warns white men to not marry Asians. The warning comes though ideas that transcend simple sloganeering against racial mixing.