Thank you Ms. Jackson for this story and resulting reflection.

Thank You

Helen Marlin

Unlike some other translations, Pearl Buck tries to refer to characters with just a single name. This is an issue, as Chinese novels sometimes refer to the same character by several different names, making it much harder to follow the plot.

I remember a story being told that a father introduced this novel to his son before other classical stories not because it is the 'best' Chinese novel, but because he knew his son would read 'All Men are Brothers' eventually anyway and he wanted to guide his son through its more contentious passages!

The stories contained within 'All Men are Brothers' are enthralling, and provided an insight into a life and culture which no longer - or perhaps ever - exists, but still has echoes in Chinese society (and movies!) today. One warning, the 'prologue' describing the release of the spirits is one of the more confusing and perhaps boring chapters of the book. The rest of the book is much less confusing.

Oh, I did play the computer game mentioned by another reviewer, but only after I read the book!

The epic story took place about 100 years prior to time of Robin Hood. But the story contains many parallels to the story Robin Hood. Just as Robin and his merry band hid in the woods of Nottingham and, in the name of Richard III against the usurping King John, robbed the rich to help the poor, so too did the bandit kngs live as outlaws from the authorities in the "water margins" (marshes) of Sung Dynasty China coming out only to harass the prime minister's troops and attempt to solicit followers to overthrow the corrupt prime minister in the name of the emporer.

The two volume set is a splendid read and helps the reader understand more about the Chinese government and culture in the eleventh century.

When I read this story I couldn't help to think of the old movie "Rebel without a cause", for that is what on the surface appears to be. Although I could never understand his motivation or choice. Yet as a Deaf person I could understand the pressure and rejection he felt from the hearing society. Of the one steady job he did have, he wasn't given the opportunity for training like his peers. When he did work with someone who understood his Sign Language they corrected him and although he had the education he was still held back. Maybe this was his reason to take to the street out of frustration thereby acting out the hearing worlds perception of Deaf people.
But in the end the wayward son comes home to the Deaf Community and realizes that Deaf people are not single entities like hearing people. That Deaf people are not whole who live outside of our community. When Deaf people strive, we strive for all Deaf people.
This is not the best book I have ever read, nor is it the worst but I am glad he came home and that his book is now added to Deaf Culture Literature, and for that reason I give this book 5 stars.

That being said, this is the most witty, insightful, coherent and thought-provoking essays I have ever read. Not only is Murray's style pure thrilling joy to absorb, but his examinations into aesthetics, the blues, tragedy, and improvisation are masterful. This book entirely changed the way I view the role of literature and art in life.

That is about all I can say. Murray knits a view of confrontation with life in art that nimbly leaps between Hemingway and Duke Ellington. I found his conclusions about the role of the blues and books in life endlessly compelling. I consider this book to be a treasure, from one of the unsquarest cats I've ever read.

The only thing that keeps this work from earning five stars is that it is truly for the Academic. Lay readers will struggle through terms and ideas that will be unfamiliar to those not versed in the lexicon of academic studies of religion.

PARADISE AND PARADIGM Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha'i Faith Christopher Buck.

Comparing paradise imagery in two Persian religions, early Syriac Christianity and the Baha'i Faith, this work contributes to religious studies methodology by introducing "symbolic paradigm analysis."

"This is an extremely powerful contribution to an important part of comparative religions, and will establish its author as a major academic scholar. Its purpose is to compare the symbologies of early pre-Muslim Persian (Sasanian) Christianity, especially in the work of Ephrem the Syrian, with the late nineteenth century Persian religion of the Baha'is, post-Islamic, as centered in the writings of Baha'u'llah. The symbolic center of the comparison is the family of symbols having to do with paradise. Both in its methodology and its scholarly treatments of Persian Christianity and Baha'i Faith, the book is insightful. It gives its subjects allure." -- Robert Cummings Neville, author of The Truth of Broken Symbols

In a novel approach that the author terms "symbolic paradigm analysis," Paradise and Paradigm offers a "theoretically modular" systematic comparison foundation of the East Syrian "Church of the East" (the Nestorian Church of Persia) and the Baha'i Faith, a new world religion. The author compares the hymns of the greatest poet of early Christianity, Saint Ephrem the Syrian, and the richly imagistic writings of the founder of the Baha'i religion, Baha'u'llah. The book employs an original analytic technique in the creation of "symbolic profiles" constructed on Ninian Smart's dimensional model of religion. As Buck skillfully demonstrates, formal similarities between any two religions are best comprehended in terms of paradigmatic differences, which nuance all parallels through a process of symbolic transformation. Buck also shows the communal reflexivity of paradise imagery in representing the ideal faith-community in both traditions.

"This work is a model of comparison, an eye-opener regarding the interesting Syriac Christian traditions, and quite a useful and revealing account of the Baha'i." -- William Paden, University of Vermont

Christopher Buck is Assistant Professor in the Department of Qur'an Commentary in Baha'u'llah's Kitab-i Iqan, the 1996 Baha'i Book of the Year. Buck is also a two-time recipient of the Award for Excellence in Baha'i Studies, presented by the Association for Baha'i Studies.

402 pages April 1999 paperback ISBN 0-7914-4062-1 hardcover ISBN 0-7914-4061-3

State University of New York Press State University Plaza Albany, NY 12246-000

It was really great!