Patricia Daly-Lipe

Normally I love books on the subject of creativity, but this one just doesn't make the grade. If there's a sin against writing, it is probably committed somewhere in this book. Parenthetical etymological notes appear too liberally throughout. The author throws out references and comments without any context. The text consists largely of quotes with a few of the author's own thoughts used to string them together--I'm unconvinced that there's anything new in this book. Of course, the quotes are both the saving grace of this book and its downfall. While they cause one to eventually realize that there is very little substance to the book, they are what give the book its only grace-notes.

The author talks about mystery, excitement, enthusiasm, and wonder being central to creativity. I agree with that thesis, so I had trouble understanding why I disliked her approach to the topic so much. Then I realized that the academic style of writing robs her words of exactly the emotions she was trying to express.

There are comments in this book that make no logical sense (I've shown them to a handful of people--no one could guess what they were supposed to mean); maybe they made sense in a missing context. The author also makes some fairly contradictory statements. She insists that science and technology require inspiration and creativity to get anywhere, and yet says that the more cognitive society gets, the less creative it gets. She says at one point, "Unlike animals, man had a brain..." Animals don't have brains?! And you can add to this list a bunch of mistakes that make it look as though she had no editor--a page on which she repeats the same quote twice in two paragraphs; etymological notes and quotes that repeat on different pages; not to mention a whole bunch of incorrect or missing punctuation marks.

Full review at ErrantDreams… (mehr)