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Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography
An award-winning writer delivers a major reckoning with religion, place, and sexuality in the aftermath of 9/11
Hailed in The Washington Post as "one of the most eloquent and probing public intellectuals in America," Richard Rodriguez now considers religious violence worldwide, growing public atheism in the West, and his own mortality.
Rodriguez’s stylish new memoir—the firs ...more
Hailed in The Washington Post as "one of the most eloquent and probing public intellectuals in America," Richard Rodriguez now considers religious violence worldwide, growing public atheism in the West, and his own mortality.
Rodriguez’s stylish new memoir—the firs ...more
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After reading this book, I spent like two hours looking at Mecca and Jerusalem on Google maps.
I let Richard Rodriguez get away with pretty much anything because he's such a phenomenal writer. You want to cram Judaism, Islam, and Christianity into one little essay? Sure. You want to stick in random paragraphs about your atheist brother's angry blog comments? Sure.
The essays I loved were "Ojala," "Disappointment," "Darling" and "The Three Ecologies of the Desert" in which he doesn't talk about ec ...more
I let Richard Rodriguez get away with pretty much anything because he's such a phenomenal writer. You want to cram Judaism, Islam, and Christianity into one little essay? Sure. You want to stick in random paragraphs about your atheist brother's angry blog comments? Sure.
The essays I loved were "Ojala," "Disappointment," "Darling" and "The Three Ecologies of the Desert" in which he doesn't talk about ec ...more
Mexican-American, Catholic, gay - not content with three strikes, add intellectual. A "public intellectual" at that. I'd never heard that phrase before, and wondered who else might hold that title. Maybe Susan Sontag.
Here's the good news: Richard Rodriguez seems to wear his identities lightly, and the first three are the prisms through which he shines his amazing intellect. This is really a book of essays that wind their way around the common theme of identity. The writing is beautifully lucid, ...more
Here's the good news: Richard Rodriguez seems to wear his identities lightly, and the first three are the prisms through which he shines his amazing intellect. This is really a book of essays that wind their way around the common theme of identity. The writing is beautifully lucid, ...more
This was my first foray into the genre of essays and what I like to think of as collections of thought bubbles. But not the kinds of thought bubbles that I ever come up with - no, the thought bubbles above Richard Rodriguez's head would never fit in a two dimensional space. Unaccustomed to this kind of writing as I am, I found myself struggling to find the tie-in themes in a few sections, but overall, the book was a delight. I often found myself setting it down to gaze at the nearest wall or win
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I did not think much of this disordered and rambling book, and I believe that those who did have not read authors of the best quality lately. It would be a compliment to call this book a salmagundi; more accurate to call it a case of literary hoarding and deceptive advertising. It bills itself as a "spiritual autobiography," and while there are observations that comport with that category, there are also contemplations about an aged gay man dying of AIDS in Las Vegas, Lance Armstrong's love life
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A bit of a disappointment from a writer I value very much. Despite the title, Darling is more a collection of essays than a spiritual autobiography. As I read the first chapter--a probing meditation on the relationship between the three Abrahamic religions and the desert in which they took form--I was anticipating an extended engagement with issues of spirituality, emptiness, the evolution of religious institutions. Unfortunately, Rodriguez doesn't place those issues anywhere near the center of
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"Darling" is one of the two or three best books I've read in 2013, though, at first, I don't think I was in the mood for it; it sat a while on the nightstand. I've loved some of Richard Rodriguez's essays as much as one can, including "Late Victorians," which I read in an issue of Harper's in 1990 and still remember being blown away by the precision and elegance of his words and thinking. There was another essay, years later, about the whole concept of "the West" that I thought was very good. "D
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I found the book too rambly for my tastes even though many of the anecdotes were interesting. But there seemed to be no flow, and that threw me off. I was constantly asking, "What does this have to do with desert religions and specifically their rejection of LGBT people?" I give it 3 stars because the book wasn't boring, but I can't justify any higher.
Long ago I read Rodriguez' Hunger for Memory so when I saw that he would be speaking at the 2014 National Book Festival in Washington, DC, I hurried to read his latest book. 'Darling' stirred my imagination. I would have to copy this entire book record all the comments and observations that captured my attention. Most memorable perhaps was the question, Do desert religions [Christianity, Islam, Judaism} make warriors? I have not stopped thinking of this question months later. Another favorite qu
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Apr 25, 2014
Lianne
added it
I was first introduced to Richard Rodriguez when he used to present video columns on the PBS News Hour. I loved his heartfelt and sometimes elegiac style that probed cultural and racial questions. I have read all of his previous work and was drawn to this new autobiography. Some of these essays include a probing examination of the city of Jerusalem with its many contradictions as well as a second essay wherein he looks at other deserts such as secular Las Vegas and interior deserts such as the o
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Richard Rodriguez is a brilliant essayist of true elegance. His style is not straightforward, but neither is it pretentious. For years, his spoken essays provided the only non-banal content to the PBS News Hour. He’s retired from that role now and focused on the written word. Darling is a loosely connected set of essays, all broad explorations of what he's learned about religion and spirituality in the course of his career as a writer and his time on Earth as a human being. He's the kind of writ
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A book designedly formless and unfocused, but not without intelligence, and Rodriguez’s voice is winning. It’s billed as a spiritual “autobiography” but I’m not sure that’s the right word. It’s more a collection of thematically related essays. The first (“Ojala”) and the last (“The Three Ecologies of the Holy Desert”) are the best. In fact, the latter is a bit sublime.
Incidentally, a very high percentage of my favorite writers have spent part of their life in Sacramento. Richard Rodriguez was born and raised there, and his essays have occupied much of my time in recent days.
It helps that Rodriguez writes about subjects that already interest me: California, Roman Catholicism, Mexico, the "browning" of Western Europe and the United States, and LGBT issues. His writing style does bounce around a bit, but I enjoy his descriptions: "Latin America was [never] going ...more
It helps that Rodriguez writes about subjects that already interest me: California, Roman Catholicism, Mexico, the "browning" of Western Europe and the United States, and LGBT issues. His writing style does bounce around a bit, but I enjoy his descriptions: "Latin America was [never] going ...more
Richard Rodriquez first entered my consciousness as a PBS Newshour California-based correspondent who commented on issues such as minorities, immigration, and the environment . This is the only one of his five published books that I've read.
In his foreword he notes that all of the chapters, some of which have appeared in periodicals, were written after September 11, 2001, "years of religious extremism throughout the world, years of rising public atheism, years of digital distraction. I write as ...more
In his foreword he notes that all of the chapters, some of which have appeared in periodicals, were written after September 11, 2001, "years of religious extremism throughout the world, years of rising public atheism, years of digital distraction. I write as ...more
In reading DARLING: A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY, an interesting sort of stream of consciousness group of essays, by Richard Rodriguez, we (the book and I) are considering the growth of the concept of *one* god in Middle Eastern deserts at one point. He reports a friend's comments about deserts. I can so identify. I recognize the feelings expressed related to my own experience of deserts through the years.
..."The first thing about deserts, he says, is sand. Not sand as a metaphor, but sand as an i ...more
..."The first thing about deserts, he says, is sand. Not sand as a metaphor, but sand as an i ...more
December 9, Second Sunday in Advent Luke 3:4-6
DARLING: A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Richard Rodriguez is a book that delivers a major reckoning with religion, place, and sexuality in the after math of 911. He calls us like John the Baptist to think our lives over again--to relook at our lives in the context of our look at success, greed, and spirituality. Nineteen years ago i made the first step in thinking my life over again as I moved to San Francisco. It is not easy--not knowing where my mone ...more
DARLING: A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Richard Rodriguez is a book that delivers a major reckoning with religion, place, and sexuality in the after math of 911. He calls us like John the Baptist to think our lives over again--to relook at our lives in the context of our look at success, greed, and spirituality. Nineteen years ago i made the first step in thinking my life over again as I moved to San Francisco. It is not easy--not knowing where my mone ...more
I was hooked after only 17 pages, and now I've finished. The style of writing mixes stream-of-consciousness with persuasive essay. I picked up the book because of the dedication to the Sisters of Mercy, an order that was instrumental in the early development of Chicago, from a frontier trading post to a thriving city. His relationship with the Sisters of Mercy is one of gratitude, but he does not give many details. His use of language and the expansive knowledge it took to write the book deserve
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A moving work of memoir by a provocative, important Mexican American writer. Rodriguez leaves behind his usual bugbears of identity politics in this book to consider religion in the 21st century, with essays about Jerusalem, the Catholic church, death, and what it means to have faith in a secular age. He's a powerful writer, and I think this is his best work yet.
"
Darling
is more than a book about the desert and religion. It’s about us, our lives, and how we have deserted humanity." - Spencer R. Herrera, New Mexico State University
This book was reviewed in the March 2014 issue of World Literature Today . Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/1npiMLB
This book was reviewed in the March 2014 issue of World Literature Today . Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/1npiMLB
The precision of Rodriguez's prose is frequently arresting. The kinds of phrases you carry with you and push on others because in a few short words Rodriguez can open a vein or suture it. Like the "blasphemy of certainty." I particularly like "The True Cross" about a beloved friend's last days in hospice care in Las Vegas.
Heard him on the program On Being with Krista Tippett and decided to get the book. The material he discussed on the radio made up a very small portion of the book, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. Still, some very interesting concepts are touched on within the sometimes difficult to follow narrative.
About halfway through this marvel of a book, I felt irritated by the subtitle, "A Spiritual Autobiography." After having read the luminous final chapter, I changed my view.
Some of this I'll want to reread because I didn't fully understand it the first go round. But that's a joy to look forward to. Rodriguez has no parallel--he has an original style, one that doesn't pander or write down to his reader.
Some of this I'll want to reread because I didn't fully understand it the first go round. But that's a joy to look forward to. Rodriguez has no parallel--he has an original style, one that doesn't pander or write down to his reader.
Wow. Just wow. From a not-so-unique-anymore spot on the margins of the Church, Darling calls Her to repent. But all the time he maintains the gentle committed voice of a child to her parent, one spouse to another. I need to read this again in the near future.
Not a spiritual autobiography as much as a collection of essays and short stories from personal experience and perspective. What gives this five stars is the writing and the originality (one of the most striking chapters was about "brown" and what it connotes).
He's a wonderful writer. I enjoyed reading about growing up in Sacramento. He presents so many unique ideas. The only part I didn't like was the stream of consciousness stuff.
Why do I remain Catholic? Just one of the questions on the journeys into Richard and his thoughts. His age and experiences parallel mine in several ways and so this book raised the hair on my arms in its pure personal truths and consistent same experiences over the decades for myself, as well. His chapters on the Sisters of Mercy, women's roles, those especially. This is an excellent Advent read for thoughts toward peace and amity across the cultures and nations. Richard is an example of how lov
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"Three Ecologies of the Holy Desert," wow.
It is indeed nothing of a spiritual autobiography, though. A collection of essays on various topics, not focused.
It is indeed nothing of a spiritual autobiography, though. A collection of essays on various topics, not focused.
I had high hopes for this book and was slightly disappointed, though it is a good read. I was eager to read a book on the God of the desert - as this book was advertised to be - and instead read one essay on the God of the desert and a lot of essays on other topics. Rodriguez is a good writer and I enjoy his work, but this book was not quite the spiritual autobiography I expected it to be.
a 3.5, there were some wonderful bits, but this is really a group of essays and some are better than others.
I have loved Richard Rodriguez ever since I read his book Hunger of Memory in college. To me, his work is always insightful and thought provoking--whether he is engaging with ideas pertaining to social class, cultural difference, educational theory, sexuality, or religion. This book is no exception. The essays work as standalone pieces and also as parts of a unified whole. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and thinking about religion and spirituality through the complexity of Rodriguez's lens in this
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Had to stop reading half way through and I rarely do that. I didn't mind that the writing jumped all over the place. I did mind that some of his writing, especially when it came to the Middle East, was simplistic and insulting.
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| Richard Rodriguez' "Darling" | 1 | 3 | Oct 04, 2014 03:21PM |
Richard Rodriguez is an American writer who became famous as the author of Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982). His work has appeared in Harper's, The American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The New Republic. Richard's awards include the Frankel Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the International Journalism Award from the World Affairs C
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