Strange Fruit

Probably very few people have yet heard of SRT -- the acronym for Spirit Release Therapy. This form of therapy has recently been gaining ground among psychotherapists in several countries -- but notably in the Netherlands and the United States. The belief that spirits of the dead may return to trouble the living is nothing new -- it's as old as mankind. And exorcism has long been practiced by the Christian churches to drive out what are always assumed to be evil spirits. The New Testament abounds in accounts of casting out of devils and various unclean spirits. However, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists -- and even some psychiatrists -- appear to be now reaching the conclusion that, not only can certain spirits intrude on individuals in the material world, but that they are not necessarily all evil. In fact, the theory goes, they may be simply disembodied beings who have somehow lost their way and who are desperately seeking help. They may sometimes manage to attach themselves to individuals, provoking effects ranging from depression to phobias, eating disorders and hallucinatory experiences. SR therapy, therefore, is developing as a form of soft exorcism associated with hynotherapy that, practitioners claim, can help to break the bond in a way that the European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis as 'a permissive and loving procedure'. Strange Fruit is the internalized narrative of such a spirit encounter and of the author's increasingly desperate efforts to set herself free. Beautifully written in language approaching the poetic, it revolves around the true story of a young girl's suicide and the disturbing series of events which follow. During frequent absences in London, the author agrees to rent her treasured, recently-renovated Dublin townhouse to the young woman who has fallen under its spell. Although their acquaintance is slight, she recognises an affinity with the girl and hence is happy to agree to the arrangement. Shortly thereafter, while the author is still in London, the young tenant is found hanged from the stairs. The subsequent feelings of grief, guilt and helplessness leads to a growing obsession. The young woman's presence pervades the house and takes over the narrators' life, bringing it to a virtual standstill. The struggle to understand and to cope with an increasingly hopeless situation leads her to examine her past life and childhood experiences, to rediscover spiritual values and eventually, to realise that the dead girl, Rosemary B, has managed to tuned into her frequency -- but she has been incapable of deciphering her message. ('Our thoughts were intertwined. Terrified of death and the manner of your death, mine held you firmly attached to the earth. Desperate to communicate your discoveries, yours pushed me beyond the boundaries'). Delivery comes, not through the ministrations of a psychiatrist, but through an encounter with a London psychotherapist. His frank interest and sensitive probing brings the graphic realisation that an all-important spiritual dimension has been lost and with it the sensitivity to listen. One gets the feeling that Strange Fruit is not only an autobiographical novel, but forms an integral part of the therapy which follows. Triggered by the Rosemary B experience, the author comes to acknowledge the extent to which she has ignored or obliterated spiritual values from her life. She gradually comes to appreciate the barriers which a materialistic lifestyle has created, blocking out the natural vibrations and stifling the capacity to find answers to questions that linger and trouble, sometimes for years, in the subconscious mind. Strange Fruit is the only work, to date, by this author. Deep, sensitive and at times dark, it nevertheless makes for compulsive reading. For anyone with an interest in the deeper workings of the human spirit or in a first hand account of SRT (a term which, by the way, is never mentioned), this is surely a book worth seeking out. Otherwise, for the student of literature, the language alone recommends it as a rewarding read.

I think this book was a truley great and wonderful book. i love how it enhances the 1800's. I hope you will find the time to read it soon.

This book contains a lot of information on a wide range of foods. Not only is it helpful in creating a healthy, natural diet, but it's an extremely interesting read. I highly recommend it for people looking for a few key foods to add to their diet, as well as for people looking to revamp the way they eat.

In “The Unwilling Celibates,” Jean Sheridan explores how to make peace with the reality of being single, when singlehood occurs not by choice but rather by circumstance. She shares how she has learned to live life as an intentionally focused individual, offering Jesus’ own life as an example of reflective living. Sheridan invites single adults to take a “bold step” and embrace a lifestyle she calls “focused living,” a way of living that encourages and develops spiritual depth, personal effectiveness, and social consciousness. The practices and values she encourages include self-reflection, a commitment to deep prayer, participation in intentional community, friendship with silence and solitude, proper balance in work, the study of sacred and spiritual resources, a preferential option for the poor, reverence for one’s body, home as a sacred place, hospitality as a way of life, stability in relationships, and disciplines in daily living, all of which culminate in the creation of a personal “rule.”

According to Sheridan, our institutions and our culture reinforce the idea that singlehood is a “limbo” state in between or on the path toward the “legitimate” state of marriage. The church typically addresses the genuine need of single people for meaningful community merely by providing social settings for singles in which to gather. “For the unwilling celibate, community is often missing. Sadly, it is what we need most. Standing at the margins of the ‘official’ church, the single adult envies those who appear to have community: the married, the ordained, the professed religious—and he or she wonders how to get there.”

“Our church does not offer us a hand,” Sheridan writes. “Sure, we can get involved in all sorts of committee and ministry work, which many of us do. But no one ministers to us; we are left to our own devices. The antidote for isolation and all of its many entrapments, of course, is community, but only community of a special kind. Families, friendships, and workplace relationships all constitute community and they support us in their unique ways, but what the single person needs is a community that promotes growth to wholeness by developing a heightened awareness of the spiritual aspect of everyday life.....

Most beneficial in Sheridan’s exploration of the spiritual single life is her suggestion for participating in what she refers to as “intentional community,” as opposed to the larger “accidental” communities to which we already belong: our workplaces, civic and political organizations, educational institutions, and even the church itself. According to Sheridan, an intentional community is “one in which I and other like-minded people overtly expressed our mutual commitment to one another in a conscious and deliberate way.” An intentional Christian community is consistently committed to a high degree of mutuality in their relationships; pursues an informed critical awareness of and an active engagement within the cultural, political, and economic megasystems of their society; cultivates and sustains a network of lively connections with other persons, communities, and movements of similar purpose; and attends faithfully to the Christian character of their community’s life. Sheridan insists that a central focus of intentional community must be social justice.

In addition, Sheridan offers a rich bibliography of resources. She suggests Albert Nolan’s “Jesus Before Christianity” as an example of living with and among, not apart from, human society, particularly the poor. Dick Westley’s “Redemptive Intimacy: A New Perspective for the Journey to Adult Faith” is a valuable resource in participating in intentional community. Parker Palmer’s “To Know As We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education” also proved to be another insightful discovery, as well as the writings of Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen. Sheridan also draws on the writings of other single Catholics struggling with their spirituality, including Dag Hammarskjold’s “Markings” and Dorothy Day’s “The Long Loneliness,” the source for the title of Sheridan’s book. To this list I would add Mary Beth Rogers’ “Cold Anger,” another excellent resource for intentional community and public relationship-building.

This translation--unfortunately the only one of the Sand Child-- misses the mark in conveying an accurate representation of Ben Jelloun's novel. There are a number of glaring errors and omissions of original text. If it is at all possible to read the work in the original, one must. My rating is of the translation, not the original.

If you are interested in the a dynamic world of storytelling read The Sand Child. It takes you through many tales which weave in and out of social constructs. What constructs create a female? What constructs create a male?

When I read this novel it took me through a range of emotions. It took me into arid land and it made me feel as if I was experiencing The Sand Child's world.

This book question gender construction. It has all the makings of a wonderful novel. I loved it and it made me change my perspective on how I view my world.

Tahar Ben Jelloun is a master of the written word, able to weave into his novels issues of social and political concern while at the same time composing sometimes humorous, often lyrical, and always thoughtful story-lines.

An important read for anyone who wants to know how psychoanalysis might be made to deal with cultural interpellation, and the questions of contemporary subjectivity. However, Lacan's language is dense and confusing, and the translation doesn't help.

If you merely dip into Lacan's masterwork, I cannot recommend too highly parts two and three of Function and field. Here's a sample on the ontological roots of the symbolic:

Man's freedom is entirely inscribed within the constituting triangle of the renunciation that he imposes on the desire of the other by the menace of death for the enjoyment of the fruits of his serfdom - of the consented-to sacrifice of his life for the reasons that give to human life its measure - and of the suicidal renunciation of the vanquished partner, depriving of his victory the master whom he abandons to his inhuman solitude.

Of these figures of death, the third is the supreme detour through which the immediate particularity of desire, reconquering its ineffable form, rediscovers in negation a final triumph. And we must recognize its meaning, for we have to deal with it. This third figure is not in fact a perversion of the instinct, but rather that desperate affirmation of life that is the purest form in which we recognize the death instinct.

The subject says 'No!' to this intersubjective game of hunt-the-slipper in which desire makes itself recognized for a moment, only to become lost in a will that is the will of the other. Patiently, the subject withdraws his precarious life from the sheeplike conglomerations of the Eros of the symbol in order to affirm it at the last in an unspoken curse.

So when we wish to attain in the subject what was before the serial articulations of speech, and what is primordial to the birth of symbols, we find it in death, from which his existence takes on all the meaning it has.... To say that this mortal meaning reveals in speech a centre exterior to language is more than a metaphor; it manifests a structure.

As another reviewer remarked, there are doubts as to how faithful translations of Lacan's "Ecrits" are, and I am therefore referring here to the original, published by "Editions du Seuil". These two volumes are a treasure trove of gems, perhaps first and foremost Lacan's treatment of the square root of -1, pp.183-5, volume 2 of the paperback edition, 1970. A tour-de-force indeed: he manages to link the square root of -1 to a phallus, even though, in French, you cannot pun on "root" the way you can in English. Lacan has a marvellous knack for stringing together words which, taken individually, mean something, and yet, once gone through Lacan's logorrhoea, end up devoid of any imaginable, and unimaginable, meaning whatsoever. Thus Lacan replaces the Saussurean sign (signifier and signified) with the Lacanian sign, entirely bereft of any possible signification. His Ecrits, however, suffer from one shortcoming: his venomous threatening innuendoes, usually in footnotes, which remain all too significant. A bitter viper, with the intelligence of a decerebrated viper, that is not even successful at being completely incoherent. Still, 5 stars for trying.

This book was ok. It was cute at times but not really funny. Some of the stories would make you smile but not really laugh. You will probably get better stories from the girls in the typing pool at work.

I loved Belly Laughs 2 just as much as the first book. It was easy to relate to and laugh about the hysterical misadventures of becoming a parent. It makes a great gift for anyone who is going to, has had or has ever been a baby. I had to give each of our four grown-up kids a copy and am encouraging them to submit the stories of our grandkids arrivals to the Stork Search of 99 Contest -- a real bonus to reading the book and recalling those hectic days and nervous nights. This book helps put it all in the right perspective. You are not alone!

I am a huge reggae fan, for reggae is more about a message than any particular stylistic of music. Bob Marley was, and still is, the king of reggae. And despite all of his personal faults and flings with the 'women of Babylon' and such, his message is what will forever be remembered.

I originally bought this book thinking it would better assist me in penetrating deeper into Bob Marley's lyrics, which are sometimes difficult to decipher for someone who is not a rasta and lives outside of Jamaica. However this book reads more like a gossip column rather than delving more seriously into issues that Bob Marley stood for and the context he found himself within. The later is why people in the Carribean and Africa on the annaversary of Bob's death, not the former. Yeah, sure, Bob was not perfect--JUST LIKE THE REST OF US-- but at least he got off his butt and did something positive for his people. And he did this by speaking the truth to the wealthy and the wicked.

This is why people love Bob Marley, and this is his message; yet our author spends most of her time recounting all the gossip floating around the reggae industry rather than fully embracing Bob's lyrics. Well, perhaps this is expected when our author is a former reggae columnist for Bilboard Magazine, which means she is probably college educated and from a middle to upper-class background. Perhaps this can explain why she is oblivious to much of what is going on in Marley's lyrics.

Case in point. Commenting on one of Bob Marley's most political songs, "So Much Trouble", she states:

"The word "illusion" appears more than once in the lyrics of Survival's songs. This...indicate[s] a deep inner struggle with the widening gap between reality and the fantasy that the decadence of the Studio 54 scenes of the Seventies...A "Million miles from reality", Marley muses" (103).

OK, this is a good interpretation for someone writing from her studio in NYC. But common! Just listen to the lyrics of Marly:

"...Men sailing on their ego trip...Blasting off on thier space ships...million miles from reality...no care for you no care for me...[chorus]So much trouble in the world"

This is social commentary on the fact that the US and USSR were literally blowing billions of dollars on blasting monkeys and human beings into space while billions of people on the face of this earth were starving. Comments like this are why the CIA wanted Bob Marley and other reggae musicians dead. I only wish that our author would take his lyrics more seriously. But no, catering towards a low-brow audience sells more books.

Ill just stick to listening to Bob Marley himself.

I think this is a pretty good book for Bob Marley fans. If you want a lot of detailed biographical and political background, then Catch A Fire is a pretty good biography that I recommend, but this book makes a great supplement as there is plenty of material about the history of the music, who composed what, and the story of all the albums.

The book appears to be based largely on a number of interviews with people who were important in Marley's life, such as Cindy Breakspeare, Chris Blackwell, manager Don Taylor, and record producer Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd and others, so their viewpoints (which may be self serving) tend to prevail.

There is at least a paragraph or two about every song, as well as sections that explain the personal and political background to the lyrics of the songs. There are also lots of pictures. On the other hand, there is not a very detailed explanation of the lyrics. For example I learned what 'a government yard in Trenchtown' (from No Woman No Cry) meant from Catch A Fire, and not from this book.

Definitely a mass market book, and not terribly deep, but I think this book will delight most Bob Marley fans and probably help them get deeper into his music.

There is not much critical evaluation of his music, and if you are looking to find out which albums are the best the book won't help you. But I will! Just save yourself the trouble and buy all the Island/Tuff Gong albums first, then if you still want more you might look into the earlier stuff. If you already have everything, there is a new Live at the Roxy double CD that
has great remastering and really rocks.

Given that CD covers don't provide as good a platform for rolling spliffs as the old LP covers, this book, which is in a coffee table book size paperback might be a useful purchase in more ways than one.

I had chosen Bob Marley for a paper I was doing at college. Many of the books that I read gave a little insight into the man and his reality but the most important thing about him, i.e. the music, many times is overlooked in the stories of many. To understand the man's music, what he wrote and what it means, to me, is what we are left with. This book not only allows you to understand his headspace but explains all the little things we may not really understand at first glance...Thankyou for giving me that insight...

Heatwole is described as compiler of Shenandoah Valley folk tales and he uses them to try to describe the destruction of the supplies in the Valley by Sheridan's troops in September and October 1864. He is not interested in primary sources other than what he has learned in the Valley and what has been printed during the past 140 years. He makes no attempt to tell the full history of the Vallry's destruction, but rather to see it through remembered folk tales. He does not evaluate these tales, but includes them as he heard them. Among my favorites is the killing of a Union trooper by a woman who smashes a crock of apple butter on his head (surely a likely happening in the Shenandoah Valley apple-rich region) and then who manages to hide the sticky body in tall grass without the rest of the Union troops noticing, and, best of all, the farmer who shoots a Union lieutenant and dumps his body in the burning barn that the officer just lit. It seems the farmer had to get off his porch, go upstairs, grab his rifle, open the window and shoot the lieutenant, while the officer stood by the flaming barn allowing this to happen. Again, no Union troops were nearby to intervene and presumably the fire was so hot that the lieutenant's body was completely reduced to ashes and nobody in his regiment missed him enough to go looking for him.

The two week Burning was actually a lot more violent and deadly to both sides than even Heatwole makes out. Both sides murdered prisoners, but the Burning generally was confined to barns, mills and cribs, not houses. That the people of the Shenandoah Valley suffered is undeniable. So is Lee's surrender six months later. The grandsons of the victims also seem not to have many qualms about dropping fire on Germans and Japanese.

The Burning needs a better book than this, one that includes more sources that those from Virginia. Heatwole could have done much better, but, frankly, he has produced a book of only limited usefulness.

Healtwole presents a county-by-county account of Sheridan's movements in the Valley. The "witness" to the destruction is the use of "facts", legends, interviews, family letters, etc. A flaw is the generalized sameness of each chapter - "these" troops, led by "this" guy did "that" to "those" peoples barn, house, etc. While there is certainly many interesting anecdotes and sidebars without, the format becomes repetitive. Indeed, if you read three or four chapters, you get the full gist. The abundance of maps helps.

As a lover of American History, especially that of the Civil War period, I must say that I have found this a difficult book to put down. Mr. Heatwole has written a facinating story of a time when "total war" came to Virginia - the burning of the Shenandoah Valley.

The beauty of this book is how it tells the story of the people of the time. His research has uncovered truly interesting stories, and really gives the reader a feel for what life must have during this terrible period. This book is very readable, and would be of interest to casual students of this period as well as die-hard historians. Of the 300+ Civil War books I have read, this has to rate in the top 10. Congratulations Mr. Heatwole!!

Mr. Oscar Wilde certainly fulfilled his end of the deal in uttering the wonderful words of wit contained in this small book.

Upon finding this book on display in a major bookstore, time flew by while I read through the whole miniature thing.

While walking up to the cashier to purchase it, however, I stopped dead in my tracks. Damn! The words on the back flap of the dust jacket read: "Printed in China."

I'm sure that Mr. Wilde would have some sharp words to say about a book of his work - words celebrating love of life and liberty - being produced in a country ran by a dictator - one that routinely uses either slave labor (in the form of "political" prisoners) or indentured servants (as in people who are not allowed to either quit or leave a job once taken) in their state-run industries.

I recommend Wilde's work wholeheartedly - but to purchase this tainted volume would certainly be unjust.

Yes, this is a tiny book, but it is worth owning. Wilde has issued forth enough wonderful quotes to fill a much larger tome, but, that said, this is a nice novelty item. The diminutive book is packed with great photos of Wilde, the quotes that made him famous, as well as many quirky illustrations of the author.
Enjoy these quips from the man who uttered "either this wallpaper goes or I do" as his final words. I highly encourage you to also read Wilde's only novel, The Picture Of Dorian Gray.

very good book. his talk about women is funny. His qoute all amke perfect sense....( i think.