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Title: The Global Soul : Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home by Pico Iyer ISBN: 0-679-77611-7 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.55 (20 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: a good topic poorly explored
Comment: I found this book to be a bit of a disappointment, all the more disappointing for its promise. I share Iyer's conviction that the Global Soul phenomenon is real and important - who among us can say that our personalities do not have some component of Global Soul? - and yet I found Iyer's meditations on it to be frustratingly unfocused. I had read a chapter from this book when it appeared, in a different form, in Harper's a few years back: it was sharp, cogent, witty, interesting, well-observed, and memorable. But freed from the editorial constraints that come with writing for Harper's, the material seems to gain flab; it loses its direction. The book reads something like a few years' worth of notes shaped into memoir form - the notes are interesting, but the subject, at least to my mind, demands something more, an argument, a conclusion, a point, anything beyond just impressions. Iyer comes off as neither a critic of globalism nor a proponent of it - strange, considering that this phenomenon often inspires strong opinions. I'd even settle for ambiguity - I'm a big fan of messy human ambiguity in response to complex topics, and a strong shot of it would do wonders for this book. Instead, Iyer is content to observe and remark in a mannered fashion, dropping the names of the many countries and cultures he crosses paths with as though they were celebrities: exactly the last thing that discourse on this topic needs more of.
Rating: 4
Summary: A little too much?
Comment: Iyer is an entertaining writer. That's why I read him. This book, although not excellent, is good (I like "The Lady and the Monk" better though). I really enjoyed the last chapter of the book about his experiences as a foreigner in Japan. I could relate because I too, lived as a foreigner in Japan. But the remainder of the book came across to me as a little bit too much. In other words - exaggerated and overdone. But this is not a worthless book. It's merit comes in remembering that these are the author's ideas and experiences - not everyone else's.
Rating: 5
Summary: Smart, humane , edgy and I couldn't stop reading
Comment: I love this book. I'm sending it to all my relatives who, like the author, are modern post-ethnics with no true sense of ethnic allegiance. His insights are quite droll: a person with no deep national loyalty may be staunchly loyal to one airline. And some huge portion of all airmiles are earned on the ground! He captures the absurd, the sad, the hopeful aspects of being a bourgeois post-ethnic in today's climate. I take my hat off to this man for writing a book that can be said to speak for an entire generation. That may sound audacious but those are the feelings he inspires in one reader! The book is not only about travel. You can be a reluctant traveller (like me) and still enjoy his narrative.
The great thing about this book -- it can be read out of order. I read the Toronto chapter first. I read the Empire chapter next. I read the first chapter last. It works. This is a book I will re-read. It has some errors, which other reviews here have rightly pointed out, but in total it's a...good read and its insights are substantial.
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Title: Falling Off the Map : Some Lonely Places of The World by Pico Iyer ISBN: 0679746129 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Lady and the Monk : Four Seasons in Kyoto by Pico Iyer ISBN: 0679738347 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: When in Germany, Do as the Germans Do by Hyde Flippo ISBN: 0844225533 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 28 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Abandon : A Romance by Pico Iyer ISBN: 037541505X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman ISBN: 0385499345 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 02 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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