Download The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be Prose Prayers and Cheerful Chants against the Dark Brian Doyle 9780814646519 Books

Product details Paperback 124 pages Publisher Liturgical Press (October 13, 2016) Language English ISBN-10 0814646514

The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be Prose Prayers and Cheerful Chants against the Dark Brian Doyle 9780814646519 Books Reviews

• I had been meaning for some time to write a review of this book. I was finally motivated to do as such when I found out that the author, Brian Doyle, passed away just a few short months ago, and now I'm quite disappointed that I did not write one earlier. Although I had only just discovered his works in the magazine First Things, I felt like I had really found something special and was looking forward to seeing his essay and short stories for time to come. I was never much of a person to read poetry (being a little too use to working through Kant and Hegel), but with Brian I found some one who could create a whole world in just a few short lines (if only Kant and Hegel could have done that).
  
  As for the book, a few notes. Most of the text is Brian's familiar prose-poem block texts that are hardly more than a page long a piece and range over all kinds of topics, but mostly centered on family and the other things that ground us. For a long time I had thought that what Brian did best was capture a strong sense of nostalgia for a bygone era (one I more encountered in the lives of my parents than in my own), but I realized upon further reflection that what Brian does best is capture an incredible intimacy in which the person he is writing about comes alive and feels more real and present and true than the person you last talked to in the flesh. His presence must have been incredible, and he and his stories have a gift for helping you to see the person right in front of you as well.
  
  This book is not the kind for sitting down in one long read but rather one in which you savor each little image and feeling that arises out of a few short lines. As with all things, some stories are better and more poignant than others, but each page will offer an unexpected surprise, that I can guarantee.To recommend only two of those that struck me the most from this collection, make sure you read The Song Sparrow (p.10) and Pop (p.45). Maybe more relevant to my life than yours as I am a teacher of teenagers and someone who deeply loves his father, respectively. Regardless, the latter poem is an especially touching one, only a few short lines about a moment that he shared with his father in Florida when their conversation is interrupted by a small lizard. One of the most arresting lines, which his father speaks after the lizard runs away after having crawled up his arm, probably applied as much to Brian as it did to the lizard "rarely Have I been graced by such an ambitious soul." Enjoy the reads.
• This is one of those books you will keep as a companion. The poems, or proems, sing with Brian Doyle's unique voice. It's one of those books where you'll catch your breath and think "are you kidding me? how did he know?" Doyle does that with regularity. I know of no other writer who respects the reader as he does. "The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be" is a box of jewels. Brian Doyle is a human treasure.
• Brian Doyle is absolutely my favorite writer, and this book just reinforced that feeling. It is full of remarkably pithy and touching short (1-2 pages) stories/musings/prayers, hard to describe but if you like his other works, you will definitely love this. Doyle is a master at getting you to think a little differently about whatever you are seeing or experiencing.
• This is a book that I would like to be able to give to every single person who is special in my life and everyone else because I know how deeply it will touch them.
• Brian Doyle carries his heart in his hands and pours love, power, and grace into each of this snapshots of our broken beautiful humanity. I savored each prose prayer as a cheerful chant against the dark.
• There is no one like Brian Doyle, and never will be. Need courage? Read this. Love great writing? Read this. Missing stories about everyday people? Read this. You absolutely cannot go wrong.
• I have loved Doyle's writing for years because he is able to write about so many experiences and observations we rarely think of. Since Doyle died recently, this will be his last collection and that adds a certain weight as well.
• I LOVE Brian Doyle! What a wonderful and imaginative man he was. Whenever I get depressed, I pick up one of his books and find myself smiling.