Author: Z'Ev Ben Shimon Halevi
Publisher: Bet El Trust
ISBN: 9781909171442
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
In this book, the esoteric dimension gives insights into the philosophy of astrology. Kabbalistic principles, cosmic symbols and archetypal images reveal deeper aspects of personal horoscope and historic events. Together with celestial patterns and rhythms, free will and choice are seen as crucial aspects of the unfolding of a fate.
The Anatomy of Fate
Author: Z'Ev Ben Shimon Halevi
Publisher: Bet El Trust
ISBN: 9781909171442
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
In this book, the esoteric dimension gives insights into the philosophy of astrology. Kabbalistic principles, cosmic symbols and archetypal images reveal deeper aspects of personal horoscope and historic events. Together with celestial patterns and rhythms, free will and choice are seen as crucial aspects of the unfolding of a fate.
Publisher: Bet El Trust
ISBN: 9781909171442
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
In this book, the esoteric dimension gives insights into the philosophy of astrology. Kabbalistic principles, cosmic symbols and archetypal images reveal deeper aspects of personal horoscope and historic events. Together with celestial patterns and rhythms, free will and choice are seen as crucial aspects of the unfolding of a fate.
Yuga
Author: Marty Glass
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
ISBN: 9780900588297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
YUGA describes five falls--the Fall into Time, the Reign of Quantity, the Mutation into Machinery, the End of Nature, and the Prison of Unreality. Taken together, these comprise the fate of historical humanity and are, the author is convinced, one-way trips. And the urban-industrial-vehicular-commercial-technological-pharmaceutical-electronic-information-spectator secular society they have produced has ripped the human world to shreds. . . . The book is hard-hitting, but readers who find it disturbing overlook the invincible beatitude that undergirds its every line. When we awaken from our modern nightmare--as sooner or later we all shall--this book will help us remember what that nightmare was. In YUGA the perennial wisdom has found a new and clarion voice. Glass's poetic and novelistic vocabulary, combined with exhaustive and blithely eclectic research, the mind-boggling diversity of his sources and references, even the peculiar Table of Contents, is a radical departure. Equally at home with the Diamond Sutra and the Grundrisse of Karl Marx, while being a careful student of magazine displays at the checkout counters of supermarkets, the author cheerfully presents his book as a provocation rather than as argument. But the master achievement of YUGA, which lies neither in its 'argument' nor its style, is its voice. That voice speaks so palpably from the author's heart that we find it resonating in our hearts as well. The final pages of YUGA are celebrations of joy and love, and the discerning reader will detect those qualities lurking between the lines of the book's every page. For remember, Marty Glass is a spokesman for the truth that underlies all the world's wisdom traditions. Behind the world of appearances--samsara, maya, and the shadows on Plato's cave--stands the uncreated Light, Reality, which is eternal Bliss. This reality speaks to individuals in the darkest of times, and its grace never falters. No one need be completely captive to history's downward trajectory. Its dream unfolds, and we can actually love that dream if we are awake to the fact that it is we ourselves that are, collectively, the immortal Dreamer. The message of YUGA is the message of Tradition, the Sophia Perennis. -- Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, etc. For those seriously concerned with the plight of present-day humanity and the unprecedented crises through which human society is passing, this book offers many profound insights. It can offer guidelines and openings onto the understanding of the traditional world and that perennial wisdom whose loss has brought about the present age of spiritual darkness. -- Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of Knowledge and the Sacred, etc.
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
ISBN: 9780900588297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
YUGA describes five falls--the Fall into Time, the Reign of Quantity, the Mutation into Machinery, the End of Nature, and the Prison of Unreality. Taken together, these comprise the fate of historical humanity and are, the author is convinced, one-way trips. And the urban-industrial-vehicular-commercial-technological-pharmaceutical-electronic-information-spectator secular society they have produced has ripped the human world to shreds. . . . The book is hard-hitting, but readers who find it disturbing overlook the invincible beatitude that undergirds its every line. When we awaken from our modern nightmare--as sooner or later we all shall--this book will help us remember what that nightmare was. In YUGA the perennial wisdom has found a new and clarion voice. Glass's poetic and novelistic vocabulary, combined with exhaustive and blithely eclectic research, the mind-boggling diversity of his sources and references, even the peculiar Table of Contents, is a radical departure. Equally at home with the Diamond Sutra and the Grundrisse of Karl Marx, while being a careful student of magazine displays at the checkout counters of supermarkets, the author cheerfully presents his book as a provocation rather than as argument. But the master achievement of YUGA, which lies neither in its 'argument' nor its style, is its voice. That voice speaks so palpably from the author's heart that we find it resonating in our hearts as well. The final pages of YUGA are celebrations of joy and love, and the discerning reader will detect those qualities lurking between the lines of the book's every page. For remember, Marty Glass is a spokesman for the truth that underlies all the world's wisdom traditions. Behind the world of appearances--samsara, maya, and the shadows on Plato's cave--stands the uncreated Light, Reality, which is eternal Bliss. This reality speaks to individuals in the darkest of times, and its grace never falters. No one need be completely captive to history's downward trajectory. Its dream unfolds, and we can actually love that dream if we are awake to the fact that it is we ourselves that are, collectively, the immortal Dreamer. The message of YUGA is the message of Tradition, the Sophia Perennis. -- Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, etc. For those seriously concerned with the plight of present-day humanity and the unprecedented crises through which human society is passing, this book offers many profound insights. It can offer guidelines and openings onto the understanding of the traditional world and that perennial wisdom whose loss has brought about the present age of spiritual darkness. -- Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of Knowledge and the Sacred, etc.
The Anatomy of Hope
Author: Jerome Groopman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375757759
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Why do some people find and sustain hope during difficult circumstances, while others do not? What can we learn from those who do, and how is their example applicable to our own lives? The Anatomy of Hope is a journey of inspiring discovery, spanning some thirty years of Dr. Jerome Groopman’s practice, during which he encountered many extraordinary people and sought to answer these questions. This profound exploration begins when Groopman was a medical student, ignorant of the vital role of hope in patients’ lives–and it culminates in his remarkable quest to delineate a biology of hope. With appreciation for the human elements and the science, Groopman explains how to distinguish true hope from false hope–and how to gain an honest understanding of the reach and limits of this essential emotion.
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375757759
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Why do some people find and sustain hope during difficult circumstances, while others do not? What can we learn from those who do, and how is their example applicable to our own lives? The Anatomy of Hope is a journey of inspiring discovery, spanning some thirty years of Dr. Jerome Groopman’s practice, during which he encountered many extraordinary people and sought to answer these questions. This profound exploration begins when Groopman was a medical student, ignorant of the vital role of hope in patients’ lives–and it culminates in his remarkable quest to delineate a biology of hope. With appreciation for the human elements and the science, Groopman explains how to distinguish true hope from false hope–and how to gain an honest understanding of the reach and limits of this essential emotion.
Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer
Author: Seymour Wishman
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480406066
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
DIVA successful former defense attorney exposes the raw truth about the courtroom “game” and a career spent defending the guilty/divDIV As an advocate for the accused in Newark, New Jersey, criminal lawyer Seymour Wishman defended a vast array of clients, from burglars and thieves to rapists and murderers. Many of them were poor and undereducated, and nearly all of them were guilty. But it was not Wishman’s duty to pass moral judgment on those he represented. His job was to convince a jury to set his clients free or, at the very least, to impose the most lenient punishment permissible by law. And he was very good at his job. Reveling in the adrenaline rush of “winning,” Wishman gave no thought to the ethical considerations of his daily dealings . . . until he was confronted on the street by a rape victim he had humiliated in the courtroom./divDIV /divDIVA fascinating, no-holds-barred memoir of his years spent as “attorney for the damned,” Wishman’s Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer is a startling and important work—an eye-opening, thought-provoking examination of how the justice system works and how it should work—by an attorney who both defended and prosecuted those accused of the most horrific crimes./div
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480406066
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
DIVA successful former defense attorney exposes the raw truth about the courtroom “game” and a career spent defending the guilty/divDIV As an advocate for the accused in Newark, New Jersey, criminal lawyer Seymour Wishman defended a vast array of clients, from burglars and thieves to rapists and murderers. Many of them were poor and undereducated, and nearly all of them were guilty. But it was not Wishman’s duty to pass moral judgment on those he represented. His job was to convince a jury to set his clients free or, at the very least, to impose the most lenient punishment permissible by law. And he was very good at his job. Reveling in the adrenaline rush of “winning,” Wishman gave no thought to the ethical considerations of his daily dealings . . . until he was confronted on the street by a rape victim he had humiliated in the courtroom./divDIV /divDIVA fascinating, no-holds-barred memoir of his years spent as “attorney for the damned,” Wishman’s Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer is a startling and important work—an eye-opening, thought-provoking examination of how the justice system works and how it should work—by an attorney who both defended and prosecuted those accused of the most horrific crimes./div
The Anatomy of Ghosts
Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 1401324495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 478
Book Description
1786, Jerusalem College, Cambridge The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumored to be haunting Jerusalem ever since student Frank Oldershaw claimed to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds and was locked up because of his violent reaction to these disturbed visions. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts -- a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion--to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr. Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted--not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also by Elinor, the very-much-alive Master's wife--his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer, or else the hauntings will continue. And not one of this troubled group will leave the claustrophobic confines of Jerusalem unchanged. CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger winner Andrew Taylor returns with an outstanding historical novel that will simultaneously keep the reader riveted, and enchant with its effortless elegance.
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 1401324495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 478
Book Description
1786, Jerusalem College, Cambridge The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumored to be haunting Jerusalem ever since student Frank Oldershaw claimed to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds and was locked up because of his violent reaction to these disturbed visions. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts -- a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion--to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr. Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted--not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also by Elinor, the very-much-alive Master's wife--his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer, or else the hauntings will continue. And not one of this troubled group will leave the claustrophobic confines of Jerusalem unchanged. CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger winner Andrew Taylor returns with an outstanding historical novel that will simultaneously keep the reader riveted, and enchant with its effortless elegance.
Anatomy of a Miracle
Author: Jonathan Miles
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
ISBN: 0553447580
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
"Confined to a wheelchair after a paralyzing injury, an Afghanistan War veteran endures a hardscrabble existence in his sister's ramshackle Mississippi home before spontaneously regaining his ability to walk, an apparent miracle that subjects him to scientific and religious debates and exposes his most private secrets."--
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
ISBN: 0553447580
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
"Confined to a wheelchair after a paralyzing injury, an Afghanistan War veteran endures a hardscrabble existence in his sister's ramshackle Mississippi home before spontaneously regaining his ability to walk, an apparent miracle that subjects him to scientific and religious debates and exposes his most private secrets."--
Anatomy of a Conflict
Author: Terre Satterfield
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774850655
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Anatomy of a Conflict explores the cultural aspects of the fierce dispute between activist loggers and environmentalists over the fate of Oregon’s temperate rain forest. Centred on the practice of old-growth logging and the survival of the northern spotted owl, the conflict has lead to the burning down of ranger stations, the spiking of trees, logging truck blockades, and countless demonstrations and arrests. Satterfield shows how the debate about the forest is, at its core, a debate about the cultural make-up of the Pacific Northwest. To talk about forests is to talk about culture, whether the discussion is about scientific explanations of conifer forests, activists’ grassroots status and their emotional attachment to land, or the implications of past people’s land use for future forest management. An engaging ethnographic study, this book emphasizes the historical roots and contemporary emergence of identity movements as a means for challenging cultural patterns. It makes a significant contribution to culture- and identity-driven theories of human action in the context of social movements and environmental studies.
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774850655
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Anatomy of a Conflict explores the cultural aspects of the fierce dispute between activist loggers and environmentalists over the fate of Oregon’s temperate rain forest. Centred on the practice of old-growth logging and the survival of the northern spotted owl, the conflict has lead to the burning down of ranger stations, the spiking of trees, logging truck blockades, and countless demonstrations and arrests. Satterfield shows how the debate about the forest is, at its core, a debate about the cultural make-up of the Pacific Northwest. To talk about forests is to talk about culture, whether the discussion is about scientific explanations of conifer forests, activists’ grassroots status and their emotional attachment to land, or the implications of past people’s land use for future forest management. An engaging ethnographic study, this book emphasizes the historical roots and contemporary emergence of identity movements as a means for challenging cultural patterns. It makes a significant contribution to culture- and identity-driven theories of human action in the context of social movements and environmental studies.
The Fate of Anatomical Collections
Author: Rina Knoeff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131703192X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Almost every medical faculty possesses anatomical and/or pathological collections: human and animal preparations, wax- and other models, as well as drawings, photographs, documents and archives relating to them. In many institutions these collections are well-preserved, but in others they are poorly maintained and rendered inaccessible to medical and other audiences. This volume explores the changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date. It is argued that anatomical and pathological collections are medically relevant not only for future generations of medical faculty and future research, but they are also important in the history of medicine, the history of the institutions to which they belong, and to the wider understanding of the cultural history of the body. Moreover, anatomical collections are crucial to new scholarly inter-disciplinary studies that investigate the interaction between arts and sciences, especially medicine, and offer a venue for the study of interactions between anatomists, scientists, anatomical artists and other groups, as well as the display and presentation of natural history and medical cabinets. In considering the fate of anatomical collections - and the importance of the keeper’s decisions with respect to collections - this volume will make an important methodological contribution to the study of collections and to discussions on how to preserve universities’ academic heritage.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131703192X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Almost every medical faculty possesses anatomical and/or pathological collections: human and animal preparations, wax- and other models, as well as drawings, photographs, documents and archives relating to them. In many institutions these collections are well-preserved, but in others they are poorly maintained and rendered inaccessible to medical and other audiences. This volume explores the changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date. It is argued that anatomical and pathological collections are medically relevant not only for future generations of medical faculty and future research, but they are also important in the history of medicine, the history of the institutions to which they belong, and to the wider understanding of the cultural history of the body. Moreover, anatomical collections are crucial to new scholarly inter-disciplinary studies that investigate the interaction between arts and sciences, especially medicine, and offer a venue for the study of interactions between anatomists, scientists, anatomical artists and other groups, as well as the display and presentation of natural history and medical cabinets. In considering the fate of anatomical collections - and the importance of the keeper’s decisions with respect to collections - this volume will make an important methodological contribution to the study of collections and to discussions on how to preserve universities’ academic heritage.
The Anatomy of Dreams
Author: Chloe Benjamin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476761175
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Discover the award-winning debut novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists, a “majestic collision of sci-fi thriller and love story” (Bustle) about a young woman struggling with questions of love, trust, and ethics as the line between dreams and reality dangerously blurs. When Sylvie Patterson, a bookish student at a Northern California boarding school, falls in love with a spirited, elusive classmate named Gabe, they embark on an experiment that changes their lives. Their headmaster, Dr. Adrian Keller, is a charismatic medical researcher who has staked his career on the therapeutic potential of lucid dreaming: by teaching his patients to become conscious during sleep, he believes he can relieve stress and trauma. Over the next six years, Sylvie and Gabe become consumed by Keller’s work, following him across the country. But when an opportunity brings the trio to the Midwest, Sylvie and Gabe stumble into a tangled relationship with their mysterious neighbors—and Sylvie begins to doubt the ethics of Keller’s research. As she navigates the hazy, permeable boundaries between what is real and what isn’t, who can be trusted and who cannot, Sylvie also faces surprising developments in herself—an unexpected infatuation, growing paranoia, and a new sense of rebellion. With stirring, elegant prose, “Chloe Benjamin has crafted an eerie, compelling first novel which, like the lingering effects of a vivid dream, resonates long past its finish” (Karen Brown, The Longings of Wayward Girls).
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476761175
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Discover the award-winning debut novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists, a “majestic collision of sci-fi thriller and love story” (Bustle) about a young woman struggling with questions of love, trust, and ethics as the line between dreams and reality dangerously blurs. When Sylvie Patterson, a bookish student at a Northern California boarding school, falls in love with a spirited, elusive classmate named Gabe, they embark on an experiment that changes their lives. Their headmaster, Dr. Adrian Keller, is a charismatic medical researcher who has staked his career on the therapeutic potential of lucid dreaming: by teaching his patients to become conscious during sleep, he believes he can relieve stress and trauma. Over the next six years, Sylvie and Gabe become consumed by Keller’s work, following him across the country. But when an opportunity brings the trio to the Midwest, Sylvie and Gabe stumble into a tangled relationship with their mysterious neighbors—and Sylvie begins to doubt the ethics of Keller’s research. As she navigates the hazy, permeable boundaries between what is real and what isn’t, who can be trusted and who cannot, Sylvie also faces surprising developments in herself—an unexpected infatuation, growing paranoia, and a new sense of rebellion. With stirring, elegant prose, “Chloe Benjamin has crafted an eerie, compelling first novel which, like the lingering effects of a vivid dream, resonates long past its finish” (Karen Brown, The Longings of Wayward Girls).
The Anatomy Lesson
Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466846399
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Philip Roth's The Anatomy Lesson was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A comic masterpiece and brilliant finale to the Zuckerman trilogy. The writer Nathan Zukerman comes down with a mysterious physical affliction--pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso and taking possession of his life. Zukerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to the next--from orthopedist to osteopath to neurologist to psychiatrist--but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. So begins Philip Roth's strangely comic new novel, The Anatomy Lesson. In it, we find Nathan Zukerman beset at age forty not only by his pain but by his past. He seriously wonders if he ought to be a novelist at all. At his wit's end, bewildered by both the obstinate pain and the isolating profession, and unconsolable by his "harem of Florence Nightingales"--Gloria, his accountant's wildly mothering wife; Jaga, the depressed Polish refuge from the hair-treatment clinic (to add to his suffering, Zukerman is going bald); Diana, the distressingly self-possessed Finch College heiress; and the temptingly levelheaded painter Jenny--Zukerman tries to pin his catastrophe on some source he can confront. There is no shortage of candidates. Zukerman's brother blames his acerbic bestseller Carnovsky, for ruining the lives of their late parents, and will have nothing to do with him. There's the critic Milton Appel, once Zuckerman's literary conscience, now his scourge--the Grand Inquisitor of Inquiry magazine, the New York Jewish cultural monthly. Searching desperately for a diagnosis that will lead to a cure, Zuckerman asks himself if the pain can have been caused by his adversaries, or by his astonishingly intractable grief for his mother, or by the disgust he has come to feel for the literary vocation he once loved. And while he is wondering, his dependence on painkillers grows into an addiction to Percodan, marijuana, and hundred-proof vodka. In the last half of The Anatomy Lesson, Zuckerman breaks out of invalid imprisonment in his Manhattan apartment and sets off on a journey to escape the pain, the adversaries, the grief, and the career--a journey into a new existence, a search for a "second life." Persuaded that a doctor's life is everything a writer's is not, Zuckerman flies to Chicago with the intention of applying to medical school at his alma mater. Though the pain he encounters there is worse even than what he's fled, the startling quest for the second life provides some of the funniest scenes in all of Roth's fiction. With the serious playfulness and extravagant insistence characteristic of his work, Roth, in his fourteenth published book, presents an astonishing antithesis to The Magic Mountain: The Anatomy Lesson is a great comedy of illness. Roth's strength has always been the ability to depict the boisterous, the farcical, and the extreme in human behavior while revealing at the same time a world that immediately strikes the reader as real--what the English critic Hermione Lee has called, in writing of Roth's career, "a manner at once...brash and thoughtful...lyrical and wry, which projects through comic expostulations and confessions of the speakers a knowing, humane authority." The Anatomy Lesson is one of Roth's finest achievements in this vein.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466846399
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Philip Roth's The Anatomy Lesson was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A comic masterpiece and brilliant finale to the Zuckerman trilogy. The writer Nathan Zukerman comes down with a mysterious physical affliction--pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso and taking possession of his life. Zukerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to the next--from orthopedist to osteopath to neurologist to psychiatrist--but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. So begins Philip Roth's strangely comic new novel, The Anatomy Lesson. In it, we find Nathan Zukerman beset at age forty not only by his pain but by his past. He seriously wonders if he ought to be a novelist at all. At his wit's end, bewildered by both the obstinate pain and the isolating profession, and unconsolable by his "harem of Florence Nightingales"--Gloria, his accountant's wildly mothering wife; Jaga, the depressed Polish refuge from the hair-treatment clinic (to add to his suffering, Zukerman is going bald); Diana, the distressingly self-possessed Finch College heiress; and the temptingly levelheaded painter Jenny--Zukerman tries to pin his catastrophe on some source he can confront. There is no shortage of candidates. Zukerman's brother blames his acerbic bestseller Carnovsky, for ruining the lives of their late parents, and will have nothing to do with him. There's the critic Milton Appel, once Zuckerman's literary conscience, now his scourge--the Grand Inquisitor of Inquiry magazine, the New York Jewish cultural monthly. Searching desperately for a diagnosis that will lead to a cure, Zuckerman asks himself if the pain can have been caused by his adversaries, or by his astonishingly intractable grief for his mother, or by the disgust he has come to feel for the literary vocation he once loved. And while he is wondering, his dependence on painkillers grows into an addiction to Percodan, marijuana, and hundred-proof vodka. In the last half of The Anatomy Lesson, Zuckerman breaks out of invalid imprisonment in his Manhattan apartment and sets off on a journey to escape the pain, the adversaries, the grief, and the career--a journey into a new existence, a search for a "second life." Persuaded that a doctor's life is everything a writer's is not, Zuckerman flies to Chicago with the intention of applying to medical school at his alma mater. Though the pain he encounters there is worse even than what he's fled, the startling quest for the second life provides some of the funniest scenes in all of Roth's fiction. With the serious playfulness and extravagant insistence characteristic of his work, Roth, in his fourteenth published book, presents an astonishing antithesis to The Magic Mountain: The Anatomy Lesson is a great comedy of illness. Roth's strength has always been the ability to depict the boisterous, the farcical, and the extreme in human behavior while revealing at the same time a world that immediately strikes the reader as real--what the English critic Hermione Lee has called, in writing of Roth's career, "a manner at once...brash and thoughtful...lyrical and wry, which projects through comic expostulations and confessions of the speakers a knowing, humane authority." The Anatomy Lesson is one of Roth's finest achievements in this vein.