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Title: A Reasonable Life: Toward a Simpler, Secure, More Humane Existence by Ferenc Mate ISBN: 0-920256-36-8 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (28 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Exaggeration to the point of stupidity.
Comment: While many of the author's statements make sense and are well worth thinking about, he often goes beyond the thoughtful to pure stupidity. For example, the author concludes his chapter entitled "A Reasonable Life" by writing "...at least do this: dump the TV set; cut up all credit cards, coupons, green stamps, crossword puzzles; cancel all subscriptions, prescriptions, addictions, memberships, affiliations, commitments and obligations, aerobics classes, kung fu classes, shrink appointments, hair appointments, and the ten-part doggy dancing lessons you gave Fido for Christmas..."
What's wrong with using the occasional coupon to purchase a needed item at a lower price? What's wrong with the mental workout of a crossword puzzle? Cancelling a prescription for a life saving medication is totally irresponsible. Canceling all commitments and obligations hardly shows care and respect for those around us to whom we have a responsibility. And dog training is a great way to bond with dogs (including dancing with dogs if that's what interests someone).
If you can read this book and sift out all the nonsense, then you will find some challenging ideas. Or alternately, you can read a different book on simplicity that doesn't need sifting through in the first place.
Rating: 5
Summary: Changed My Way Of Thinking
Comment: This book changed my way of thinking about how I was or wasn't living my life. It's one of those "gems of a book" which I'll need to reread over and over (enjoyingly so,) just to keep me on-course living a purpose-filled, well balanced life. The book did actually enhance my life...now if I could only live in Tuscany!
Rating: 4
Summary: A wonderful slap upside the head
Comment: I have read several complainy reviews here, and I believe they are caused by two things: a failure to appreciate certain writing techniques, such as the "rhetorical rant", and placing too much seriousness on Mate's socialist political sympathies. I found his political notions to be rediculous (literally carve up cities into happy little villages, making the rich pay for it??). But if you can set aside some of his loonier ideas and just accept that he is a gadfly, the book can be completely illuminating. Readers must be able to recognize satire or the occasional rant. Did he really MEAN we should stop doing cross-word puzzles? Of course not! His larger point is missed to those who can't see the device of exageration he is using.
So many of his ideas make so much sense, and I've come to adopt several of them. The value of the family garden. A call to honor the notion of rest on Sunday (harkening back to the ancient idea of the Sabbath). His TV chapter makes me feel like such an idiot for how I sometimes waste precious hours of my life in front of that box. His description of the state of education, and consumerism in the face of what our children really need: us. Whoa!
I think this is, on balance, a fantastic book. I disagree with the author on his contention that cities are horrible and the countryside is idylic. I LOVE Chicago and find it to be a very humane and beautiful place to live. Yes, it has many serious problems, like all cities, but it also has life and many opportunities to build genuine comunities -- of neighbors, at one's church, etc. Rather than flee, I choose to take Mate's compelling ideas and challenges and try to find a way to apply them to life in my city.
Steven Slaughter
Chicago
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Title: Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World by Linda Breen Pierce, Vicki Robin ISBN: 0967206715 Publisher: Gallagher Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Voluntary Simplicity (rev) : Toward A Way Of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich by Duane Elgin ISBN: 0688121195 Publisher: Quill Pub. Date: 04 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin ISBN: 0140286780 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Simplicity Lessons: A 12-Step Guide to Living Simply by Linda Breen Pierce ISBN: 0967206790 Publisher: Gallagher Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living by Janet Luhrs ISBN: 0553067966 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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