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Times of Surrender. Selected Essays
Vol. 107, No.5
Times of Surrender. Selected Essays. By Robert Coles. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1988. 278 pages, index. $22.50
Reviewed by RICHARD CAPLAN Iowa City, Iowa Dr. Coles, a child psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard, is a splendid writer who has published dozens of books and won a Pulitzer Prize. This is a collection of essays written over some 25 years, which gives Coles a great swatch of modern life on which to exercise his forte: social commentary. Most of these essays are written in the form of a book review. Book reviews are all too often brief, factual, and dull, but the medium does offer the potential for a writer of style and intellect to expand, interpret, and especially to unfurl his own creativity; if successful, the reader will be challenged to explore new domains. The essay, like any other literary form, is not for everyone. If, however, you enjoy the connecting of previously unconnected ideas, the fresh elaborating on familiar themes, the seeing for the first time of a critical, lively perspective, then you will be satisfied with this book. To speak richly in metaphors is a prerogative of the essay, less risky perhaps than a poem, but allowing for ample flexing of the intellectual muscle. Coles is a physician author whose vigor of moral concern draws him to certain biographies and other works that assess human nature, its strengths and follies, its small triumphs and massive failures. He summons his sense of wonderment, satisfaction, awe, or outrage and shares it with us in a style that is exceedingly direct and totally lean. He has pruned his prose until his ideas and his images strike us clearly and strongly enough to prompt a change of attitude or behavior. His idol and personal mentor, William Carlos Williams, would doubtless be pleased. These essays are grouped as literature in relation to psychiatry and psychology, medicine, religion, minorities and art, children, and politics and people. But literature dominates, whether the examination explores cultural narcissism, the possibly porphyric madness of King George III, or the lives of Thomas Merton and Reinhold Niebuhr. Physician readers will especially savor the links Dr. Coles makes between literature and the study and practice of medicine.
Book Reviews
575
Most of these essay-reviews were originally published in prestigious medical and literary journals. Dr. Coles is in that select company of writers, along with Lewis Thomas, who offer us essays of artistry and profundity influenced by medical experience. Here is a thinker who urges us to analyze carefully, eschew labels, stereotypes, and excessive theorizing, and attend to individual persons and their needs. Coles applies the goals and methods of medical work at its finest, through finely crafted literary means. Fascinated by words, loving and wielding them as instruments to understand and change his fellows, he seeks to heal the many dysfunctional features of individuals and society. The many interests and talents of Robert Coles are well displayed here. His former readers and new ones will all enjoy this volume.
Rembrandt. Self-Portrait. By Pascal Bonafoux. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1985. 159 pages, illustrated, hardcover. $60
Reviewed by WAITE S. KIRKCONNELL Tampa, Florida Many ophthalmologists with an interest in art history have made the retrospective diagnosis of cataracts in certain artists by comparing the paintings done in youth with those done in old age. Few artists have portrayed themselves so often and so persistently and searchingly as did Rembrandt. There are so many paintings of the same subject in this book that a careful and ordered observation of Rembrandt's visual problems is possible. The self-portraits are arranged chronologically from 1625, when he was 19 years old, until 1669. They demonstrate clearly that in about 1650, Rembrandt began to use ever increasing amounts of amber pigments, particularly for his flesh-tones, and at the same time used fewer blue pigments. Some years later a loss of detail is evident. The portrait made in 1665 is almost entirely in amber and brown, with a significant loss of detail. After 320 years it is certainly possible that the dates of some of these paintings may be in error but, nevertheless, it is fascinating to observe this progressive change in the pigments and the slow progressive loss of detail. This beautifully illustrated volume is of great
Times of Surrender. Selected Essays. By Robert Coles. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1988. 278 pages, index. $22.50
Reviewed by RICHARD CAPLAN Iowa City, Iowa Dr. Coles, a child psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard, is a splendid writer who has published dozens of books and won a Pulitzer Prize. This is a collection of essays written over some 25 years, which gives Coles a great swatch of modern life on which to exercise his forte: social commentary. Most of these essays are written in the form of a book review. Book reviews are all too often brief, factual, and dull, but the medium does offer the potential for a writer of style and intellect to expand, interpret, and especially to unfurl his own creativity; if successful, the reader will be challenged to explore new domains. The essay, like any other literary form, is not for everyone. If, however, you enjoy the connecting of previously unconnected ideas, the fresh elaborating on familiar themes, the seeing for the first time of a critical, lively perspective, then you will be satisfied with this book. To speak richly in metaphors is a prerogative of the essay, less risky perhaps than a poem, but allowing for ample flexing of the intellectual muscle. Coles is a physician author whose vigor of moral concern draws him to certain biographies and other works that assess human nature, its strengths and follies, its small triumphs and massive failures. He summons his sense of wonderment, satisfaction, awe, or outrage and shares it with us in a style that is exceedingly direct and totally lean. He has pruned his prose until his ideas and his images strike us clearly and strongly enough to prompt a change of attitude or behavior. His idol and personal mentor, William Carlos Williams, would doubtless be pleased. These essays are grouped as literature in relation to psychiatry and psychology, medicine, religion, minorities and art, children, and politics and people. But literature dominates, whether the examination explores cultural narcissism, the possibly porphyric madness of King George III, or the lives of Thomas Merton and Reinhold Niebuhr. Physician readers will especially savor the links Dr. Coles makes between literature and the study and practice of medicine.
Book Reviews
575
Most of these essay-reviews were originally published in prestigious medical and literary journals. Dr. Coles is in that select company of writers, along with Lewis Thomas, who offer us essays of artistry and profundity influenced by medical experience. Here is a thinker who urges us to analyze carefully, eschew labels, stereotypes, and excessive theorizing, and attend to individual persons and their needs. Coles applies the goals and methods of medical work at its finest, through finely crafted literary means. Fascinated by words, loving and wielding them as instruments to understand and change his fellows, he seeks to heal the many dysfunctional features of individuals and society. The many interests and talents of Robert Coles are well displayed here. His former readers and new ones will all enjoy this volume.
Rembrandt. Self-Portrait. By Pascal Bonafoux. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1985. 159 pages, illustrated, hardcover. $60
Reviewed by WAITE S. KIRKCONNELL Tampa, Florida Many ophthalmologists with an interest in art history have made the retrospective diagnosis of cataracts in certain artists by comparing the paintings done in youth with those done in old age. Few artists have portrayed themselves so often and so persistently and searchingly as did Rembrandt. There are so many paintings of the same subject in this book that a careful and ordered observation of Rembrandt's visual problems is possible. The self-portraits are arranged chronologically from 1625, when he was 19 years old, until 1669. They demonstrate clearly that in about 1650, Rembrandt began to use ever increasing amounts of amber pigments, particularly for his flesh-tones, and at the same time used fewer blue pigments. Some years later a loss of detail is evident. The portrait made in 1665 is almost entirely in amber and brown, with a significant loss of detail. After 320 years it is certainly possible that the dates of some of these paintings may be in error but, nevertheless, it is fascinating to observe this progressive change in the pigments and the slow progressive loss of detail. This beautifully illustrated volume is of great