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Book Reviewed by:From the book jacket: From the author of The Sixteen Pleasures
comes an unforgettable novel about a man's search for meaning, in the tradition
of Louis Begley's About Schmidt and Evan Connell's Mr. Bridge.
Rudy Harrington has spent half his life in a rambling Chicago house, raising
three daughters with his independent-minded wife. But his wife has died, his
daughters have moved away, and Rudy is restless. In what he interprets as a
moment of transcendent vision, he puts the family home up for sale and buys an
avocado grove in Texas. While adapting to his new vocation, new home, and new
friends, Rudy takes up a book--Philosophy Made Simple--and begins to struggle
with Plato and Aristotle, Hume and Schopenhauer. His newly acquired wisdom is
put to the test when he enlists the neighborhood elephant to preside over his
daughter's Hindu wedding and falls in love with the groom's mother.
Comment: There are plenty of books written from a man's point of view but all too often the growth in the protagonist's character is in direct correlation with
the body-count. For me, Philosophy Made Simple stands out because
it's written from a man's point of view with a body-count of zero (well, that's
not entirely true, a key character does die but not how you'd expect, and I'm
not going to tell you who or why as that would spoil the story!)
It's a quietly funny story set in the late 1960s, and very well observed.
If you read and enjoyed
The Poet of Tolstoy Park or
The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, then Robert Hellenga's latest
is a shoe-in for you.
"There's nothing whimsical about this solidly grounded fiction, which
enchantingly explores the space between philosophical concepts and our hapless
floundering in life's challenges." - Kirkus Reviews.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in March 2006, and has been updated for the
March 2007 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
If you liked Philosophy Made Simple, try these:
The End of Your Life Book Club
by Will Schwalbe
Published 2013
The inspiring story of a son and his dying mother, who form a "book club" that brings them together as her life comes to a close.
by Sam Savage
Published 2009
Firmin is a rat born in a book (a shredded copy of Finneggans Wake), who finds the books he consumes also consume his soul. He becomes a vagabond and philosopher, struggling with mortality and meaning.
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