Ably edited by their son Lawrence, the instructive and inspiring Holocaust narrative of Jack and Rochelle Sutin provides ample proof of both the degradation implicit in the Shoah and the astounding strength and courage Jewish partisans demonstrated in their battle against the attempted Nazi genocide. "Jack and Rochelle" is a deceptively easy book to read; the chapters consist of blended chronological testimonies; Lawrence Sutin honorably avoids imposing his own voice on his parents, instead allowing his mother and father to describe, in their own words, their own cadences, the horrors they faced and the gritty resolve they mustered to fight back. Rarely does a subtitle so accurately depict the contents of a memoir as does their own: "A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance."

Both Jack and Rochelle came from educated and enlightened eastern European Jewish families. As the two of them chronicle the onset of anti-Jewish depradations, they remind us of the rich texture of their pre-war lives. This dimension of humanity, of lives complicated by strained love relations, competitive urges and the deeply felt need for independence, makes the Nazi onslaught all the more unsettling and horrific.

Several themes predominate in the Sutins' braided lives. First is the omnipresence of Jew hatred, whether it be in pre or post war Poland, in the brutally repressive Soviet bureaucracy or the finely honed hatred of Nazi Germany. Indifferent neighbors, vicious anti-Jewish Russian partisans (who commit ghastly sexual offenses against women who want nothing more than to join them in battling a common enemy), and the active participants in human eradication, the Nazis, make the Sutins' world one of constant peril. Survival is never taken for granted, and Jack and Rochelle's descriptions of their physical torment, often undertated, is wrenching to read. Personal sacrifice exists on every level: physical, social and spiritual. Rochelle's first child dies within a day due to exposure when its survival imperils others; Jack is literally covered with pus-filled boils as a result of living outside the boundaries of human habitation.

Yet, neither Jack or Rochelle never complain, never give themselves away to self-pity. Instead, they are infused with the Judaic command to remember and Rochelle's mother's insistence on revenge, to take action to avenge the murder of their people. In this charged atmosphere of sanguine justice and physical erosion, amidst the rank and fetid habitat of primitive partisan surroundings, hope and love survive. Jack dreams that Rochelle will appear. She does. Despite sexual abuse and spiritual depletion, Rochelle gradually accepts and receives Jack's love. He has never stopped loving her.

"Jack and Rochelle" is above all a cry of victory. It is a cry that murder and eradication cannot conquer a people. It is a cry that memory and consecration to life will prevail over death. It is a cry that love can endure, even if it is formed in the absolute crucible of death.

A true story well told. An uplifting story about the power of love, faith, and self reliance. The unbelievable resiliance of humans to survive and keep their sanity in a world gone crazy. The book does not dwell on the horrors or even give explicit descriptions. The two main characters had a hard enough time and were not physically tortured or held prisoner. They simply hid out and lived in terror for several years until miraculously making their escape to the West. These were two lucky people who nevertheless suffered years of fear and depradation.

In recent years, some accounts of Holocaust survivors have been called into question as to their veracity. But this narrative, told alternately by Jack and Rochelle Sutin has the absolute ring of truth. The accounts of their experiences in the forests of Poland as part of the armed Jewish resistance are thrilling and heart-breaking by turn. Their survival is miraculous, considering that for more than two years they were hunted every day by Nazis, anti-Semitic Polish farmers, and even Russians by whose sides they were fighting.

Jack and Rochelle tell their story in a very straightforward manner, setting forth details which must be painful beyond telling to remember. I am filled with admiration for their ability to move forward and agree that giving life to a new generation is the best revenge for all the horrors they suffered.

Adding much to the book are an eloquent preface and afterword by the Sutins' son, Lawrence, who compiled and edited the material. His love and respect for his parents are evident with every word he writes, and he tells quite honestly how hearing these stories since early childhood has affected his and his sister's lives.

An important addition to the body of Holocaust literature.

Using the visual medium of postcards coupled with creativity and philosophy and memoir of Lawrence Sutin's words gives this work life, punch and texture. It's a great work to spur your own creativity - and to satisfy the voyeuristic urge in all of us. I wish there were more truly original pieces of literature like this.

Larry has an interesting life problem -- he's the son of Holocaust survivors. His mom and dad met behind enemy lines in Poland, hiding from the Nazis -- a remarkable story he details in his tribute to their experience, Jack and Rochelle. He reveres and loves his parents, but their experience has had the effect of throwing his life into a sort of unheroic (by comparison) shadow.

Yet he has soldiered on. Larry is a gnostic by nature. By this I mean to say that Larry is, as near as I can tell, very brilliant, with a special knack for tackling arcane topics.

He wrote a celebrated analysis of speculative fiction writer Philip K. Dick a decade ago , and has followed that up with something even more Byzantine, a full-fledged biography of Aleister Crowley (Do What Thou Wilt, A Life of Aleister Crowley.

But in the meantime, he took time to create a perfectly wonderful mini-autobiography called A Postcard Memoir. It is a series of portraits from his life, thumbnails of people who have touched him, along with a few philosophical observations. The "gimmick" or hook that these 400-word wonders hang on is that each is accompanied by an antique picture postcard, which Graywolf Press has lovingly reproduced.

It is a gimmick which works smashingly. First, it is a natural one -- Larry collects postcards, and uses favorite cards as reverie objects, staring into them until the faces and places he doesn't know and hasn't visited spur a personal association inside him. A postcard labeled "Smartly Dressed Young Man" depicts "a young man of angular but easy good looks, earnestness and wit, [and] a taste for faintly wicked pranks." The picture bears an eerie resemblance to Larry's friend Bob, who can be charged with those same defects.

So Larry's essay describes his friendship with Bob, how they met as young writers (though "his subject matter was the borderlines of clarity and mine the chasm of chaos") concluding with the realization that "the best friends of my life were people who would let me be in their company and somewhat copy them."

In one essaylet after another, Sutin is unstintingly honest about what he takes to be his own defects -- an obscurity of thought, a painful bashfulness, and a feeling of not being quite right for this world -- feelings alien to all but himself.

I have only scratched the surface of his concerns. He writes about his parents, lost loves, his beloved children, his wife Mab, who from these writings appears to have been FedExed to Larry overnight from heaven, about jobs and opportunities, places that are real, and places that exist only in dreams.

It is a book of tremendous intimacy because we get to look at Larry's life in all its pimply everydayness -- but it is magical, too, because the pictures are so beautiful, and transport us into our own unspoken memoirs. It's a wonderful gift from a talented writer.

I can't believe Lawrence Sutin has written another book - and this one is even better than the last two. What a fascinating way to structure the story of his life - by using favorite postcards that inspire memories of days gone by. I loved his book about Phillip K Dick - and the one he wrote with his parents, about their Holocaust experiences, is must-read stuff. But this one is the best yet - by turns fanciful, touching and downright funny. Bravo!

PKD is my number-one writer, both for style, but more particularly for ideas. There is so much in this book that shows the man was a thinker, an explorer of ideas not just for the novels and short stories he could generate from them. With PKD, ideas developed a unique philosophy which is why his fiction is founded on such a firm basis. Even when his ideas change and we can see the change (for example 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' and 'A Scanner Darkly') there is no contradiction involved, just a clear evolution. For PKD fans who haven't yet read his non-SF novels I encourage you to do so - I would be surprised if you were disappointed.

PKD has also left a great legacy of pithy quotes - such as 'reality is what is left behind when you stop believing in something'. My favourite, however, he wrote in a forward to one of the anthologies of short stories. He said that science fiction is not about 'what if ......' it's about 'My God! what if .....'.

There is a lot of this in his philosophy too.

While I've read this entire book cover-to-cover, I have probably read the last half (Part Five: Essays and Speeches, and Part Six: Selections from the Exegesis) at least four times. That's where the real philosophy is. Or perhaps I should say the real mysticism. Actually, P.D.K.'s thought was a combination of philosophy and mysticism, not unlike the works of Pythagoras or Plato. Indeed, I would not hesitate to place him in such exalted company.
Dick's Gnosticism is the Gnostisism of true revelation, of epiphany and theogony (of union with the divine.) Yes, some people arrogantly write this off as the rantings of a "schizophenic", but then they would no doubt apply that same meaningless, garbage diagnosis to every great mystic teacher or shaman.
Here you get the revelations of his novel ,_Valis_, developed and fleshed out in a much more satisfying manner. Indeed, unless you are fortunate enough to track down a copy of his mythical _Exegesis_ this is the best expression of his thought that you will find.
One last note, as much as I agree with the gnostic idea of a transcedent God (or Logos, or Tao) breaking through into our material "Black Iron Prison", I do have a problem with his concept of a Yaldaboath (i.e. deranged, lesser, creator god.) You see, human materialistic, hyper-rational, civilization functions as such a lesser "god." Have we not made money, science, and ego into idols that are worshipped in their own right to the exclusion of the the true transcendant God? You simply do not need to posit the existance of such a supernatural demiurge, devil, or "Moloch" (as Ginsberg called it.) Human ignorance and evil are quite up to the role.
Oh yes, P.D.K.'s motto of "The Empire Never Ended", is taking on new revelence these days....

THE SHIFTING REALITIES OF PKD is a perfect title for this material. It was in his speeches to college students that PKD exposed his mental terrain--holding little back. Here he discussed his two obsessions: What is reality? & What constitutes an authentic human? This material shows how Dick used his sci-fi novels to poke holes in simpler cosmologies. Dick made the universe his own sandbox.

In THE ANDROID & THE HUMAN he says that free will may be an illusion. Were humans also controlled by tropisms that are so evident in the growth of plants? He sounded out his greatest fear as 'The reduction of humans to mere use--men made into machines, ... what I regard as the greatest evil imaginable.' Dick saw the time to come when a writer would be stopped not by unplugging his electric keyboard but by someone unplugging the man himself.

In MAN, ANDROID & MACHINE Dick found a hopeful theory at the end of his dark tunnel. In this essay he discussed Teilhard De Chardin's Noosphere, 'composed of holographic & informational projections in a unified and continually processed Gestalt,'--a summation of the globe's intelligence. Dick never worried about the label 'made in a laboratory.... the entire universe is one vast laboratory,' he writes. Here he also lays bare his own reality--one composed of a series of crystallized dreams. He cites Ursula Le Guin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN as his model for 'understanding the nature of our world'. He adds: 'I myself have derived much of the material for my writing from dreams.' PKD challenged the reader to pry beneath the facade of daily existence and knead the silly putty of the dream world into some recognized shape.

By the time of his premature death in 1982, Philip K. Dick had shrewdly submitted and withdrawn so many hypothetical explanations for his chaotic life and unusual experiences that it made rational judgement and objective analysis impossible for those who were paying attention. Many people were paying attention, and waiting a little too passively for his every next pronouncement on the divine. What is amazing today isn't the great number of fans his science fiction work has generated globally, but the increasing deification of Dick as an illuminated cyberpunk guru and Fortean poster boy of the first order. Certainly Dick documented his experiences more thoroughly, if not more clearly, than most; but since millions of people experience paranormal or metaphysical phenomena every year, and some year after year as Dick did, exactly how and why does Dick stand out from the rest?

Lawrence Sutin's book, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, doesn't attempt to answer this question, taking for granted as it does that Dick was a unique case and a genius; but it does given the general reader a broader overview of Dick's life than has thus far been available. Sutin states that he has respectfully declined to psychoanalyze or diagnose Dick; fair enough; but, considering the events of Dick's life, why not have given the finished text to a reputable psychiatrist for an opinion? Because Sutin, obviously an admirer of his subject, 'wants to believe,' as Dick did. Clearly, Dick, who believed his traumas at the hands of others began while still in the womb, had many legitimate physical, emotional and mental problems of a severe, documentable nature. While no psychiatrist's opinion is verity, in light of Dick's chronic drug addiction, institutionalizations, suicide attempts, and diagnoses of schizophrenia (his aunt was a catatonic schizophrenic), an objective analysis of the facts of Dick's life as it is currently understood would be helpful to fans, Forteans, and general readers alike. For those genuinely interested, separating the various facets of Dick's existence as carefully, cautiously, and sensitively as possible is a must, and the only proper route to an accurate understanding.

Dick had been paranoid, emotionally infantile, co-dependent, and narcissistic all of his adult life when he suffered his first 'Valis' ('Valid?' 'Validation?') experience in 1972. He was also too blinded by his own unconscious egotism-which was everywhere in evidence--to consider that what he-an avowed Gnostic--had experienced may simply have been a miraculous manifestation of the divine. Mystifier Dick spent the next 9 years anguishing over his experiences in private and public, often sounding like the madman he may have irregularly been and alienating friends and colleagues.

Though Dick claimed to be well-versed in Jung, he seems never to have applied himself to Jung's The Psychology of The Transference, a book which concisely offers an explanation for Dick's visionary, archetypal experiences without in the least flattening them into dusty meaninglessness (Jung states: "The unconscious manifests itself in a sudden incomprehensible invasion.") Considering the hatred Dick harbored for his parents throughout his lifetime, it's unfortunate he didn't stringently apply himself to Freud as well. For backward-looking, Oroborous-like Dick never tired of habitually swallowing his own tail. His vision of an immense evil face in the clouds-which he readily identified with his father--and his 'Valis' experiences--whatever else they may have been---point directly to both a highly charged and constellated father complex and a gaping maw of family romance. Dick consciously recognized his morbid ties to his family, but blithely moved beyond these, favoring KGB agents, CIA mind control, beams from distant planets, orbiting satellites and shadowy conspiracies as the more likely culprits. Like a 1970s Richard Shaver, Dick went out on some very long, thin, and unsupportable limbs to attempt to justify his experiences, as if Plato's allegory of the cave had never entered the historical record.

When the Christian god eventually manifests in a prolonged vision and establishes itself to Dick as the true force generating 'Valis,' Dick decides to accept this deity--for a few months anyway--but not before suggesting to 'God' that the two of them are one and equivalent. Dick completed over a million words of nonfiction speculation on the nature of these experiences, and Sutin writes that Dick's final estimation of 'Valis' was that "knowledge-not mere faith-as to the true 'hyper-structure' of the universe is possible." Funny, that's something any intelligent person knows just out of the gate. Astronomy, physics, the Neoplatonists, anyone?

Dick also seems to have conveniently failed to make the conspicuously obvious jump concerning psychic contamination. Before the 'Valis' incidents, he had written two novels (one, UBIK = 'Ubiquitous?') which dealt with strange amorphorous godlike entities who intrude unexpectedly on mortal men with devastating results. Why then didn't he draw the more reasonable conclusion that the explanation for 'Valis' could be found within his imagination and himself? Dick was not the first creative personality to experience seemingly divine inspiration; from Blake, Rilke, and Yeats to Robert Frost, Keith Richards and Tori Amos, the phenomena is universally experienced but little understood.

Clearly an ardent fan, author Sutin occasionally presents his material in too subjective a fashion. Readers may also reject Sutin's following claims: that modern science fiction does not stem from the early work of Wells, Verne, Huxley and others; that Dick was the first novelist ever to mention the I-Ching in an American work of fiction (Sutin must have read several hundred thousand books to verify this); and, perhaps mistaking a publishing house for an audience, that William Burroughs is a 'mainstream' American writer. Most glaringly, Sutin repeats the global error of stating that 'Fred' in 'A Scanner Darkly' does not realize he is also Robert Arctor, the person Fred has been assigned to surveil.

Fans of Dick's work, and especially those who share his seedy if prescient sensibilities, will find the book fascinating. With all the new information concerning Dick's life coming to light, the book is deservingly in need of a careful revision.

This is Lawrence Sutin's best book (well, of the three that I've read). It's also the best book on Dick I've found, and it's about as engrossing as some of Dick's better novels. There's a lot of stuff in here, but I wolfed it down pretty quickly.

The various troubled relationships, paranoid experiences (and attitudes), drug experimentation, and transcendental experiences are discussed here in some detail. We get lots of stories from Dick's ex-wives and such discussing his writing habits and nervous behavior.

I found particularly helpful the bibliography (with plot summaries) at the end of the book. It's depressing how much of Dick's work is still out of print.

A great book on a great American writer. Anyone who wants to go further might look at IN SEARCH OF VALIS, also by Sutin.

Sutin, who obviously did his homework, begins with the loss of a twin sister when Philip K. Dick was an infant, and develops the idea that this had a profound influence on his life and his writing. He weaves literary and psychological insights together to explain Dick's entire career and the themes of his books. Sutin also proposes a plausible theory (bringing medical and psychological facts together) about the source of the "VALIS" experience, which was the major event of Dick's adult life and the impetus for some of his strangest, best, and most difficult books. Along the way, Sutin manages to put Dick's life in context of the times (especially the counterculture of the 60's) while making it clear that he was very much outside the times. It's too bad this is out of print, and I hope it's reissued someday.

(actually, 31/2 stars) The story of Mr. Crowley is one of the most poinant tragedies I've ever come across. Niechze's descent into madness is the only adequate paralell I know of. Madness would have been a kinder punishment for the Beast. He had to live out his life in total awareness of his pain. A great magus he was, but his Vision was to big for the small Victorian ego it inhabited. Crowley was unable to overcome his arisitcratic training, and thus his revelation became as poison unto him. In a Just-the-facts biography, Lawrence Sutin chronicles the Tragedy of the Beast. The work is well done, doing its best to avoid rumor and vitriol condemnation. Much of the information comes from Crowley's own diaries and the words of the people who knew him. I also appriciated the fact that Sutin does not end with any sort of Asopian Moral to the Story. The tale provides its own moral as the reader interprets it. There are a few stylistic problems, however, marr what is otherwise a wonderful book. First, Sutin throws around terms like Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram without suspecting that some readers might not know what he's talking about. Throughout, he assumes a primer knowledge of the rites of Ceremonial Magick that the reader may not posees. Also, his endnotes are confusing and referance to them hampers the flow of reading. I recomend this book for any who want to understand the Master Therion. It is a tragedy on par with Promethius.

The problem of Aleister Crowley: (now) widely regarded as a precursor to most modern tendencies toward sexual experiementation, women's equality (the paradox is examined in the book), artistic tendencies, gay poetry, the western interest in Buddhism and eastern philosophies etc. He was also at least somewhat a misogynist, racist, all-round scoundrel, drug addict, alcoholic, destitute and a sado-masochist. To top it all off, he was the twentieth century's version of Christ. Or so he would have you believe.
The distinguishing characteristic of Sutin's biography is his willingness to frankly admit the negative, and sometimes quite despicable, aspects of Crowley's personality despite his evident admiration for the man. There are more myths and legends surrounding this figure of the twentieth century than make it safe to attempt to pinpoint just who the mysterious Crowley really was and what he really wanted.

Sutin does a masterful job dealing with the press-Beast contentions...he shows Crowley's willingness (and capability) to use the yellow journalism of his time for his own benefit by labeling him the Wickedest Man in the World. Crowley succeeded in turning around all the ridiculous claims of John Bull, The Looking Glass and their ilk to insure his legacy...there are few better ways of garnering the attention of potential students than screaming headlines about ritual murder of 150 children, bestial sex rites, and claims of being nothing less than the Antichrist. This persona is the usual introduction for Crowley readers...it is also the best bait imaginable, and Crowley knew it.

Sutin places Crowley's biases squarely at the foot of the frailties of the times he lived in. After all, the editors of the papers above certainly did not have any more scruples than Crowley himself. He appropriately leaves open such sensitive questions as the reality of the Cairo Working, the nature of Aiwass and the source of Liber AL. He does an excellent job at tracing Crowley influences outside of Thelema, particularly the contentious question as to the degree of involvement Crowley had in developing Wicca (I am firmly of the opinion that Gardner stole shamelessly--not that that's a bad thing or uncommon: after all, Crowley did it too--from Crowley, the Golden Dawn, the OTO etc., whereas I am skeptical as to Crowley's authorship of "The Book of Shadows", though it is clear "Shadows"--and "High Magic's Aid"--were both influenced by Crowley).

Sutin does a masterful job placing Crowley in his appropriate place of twentieth century--and future--spirituality (though he was not the first--if you take a look at the posthumous chronology in the back, in 1970 it was I beleive Time Magazine that placed Crowley as one of the 1000 people that shaped the twentieth century).

Crowley's place? Teacher, devil, Prophet, eminent spiritual thinker. Artist, philosopher, brilliant visionary. The Logos of the Aeon.

An excellent biography.

Love is the law, love under will.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

This is definitely the definitive biography of Aleister Crowley. Anyone who is even remotely curious about "...one of the greatest thinkers of our time."(Jimmy Page) will definitely enjoy this book. Not only was it a personal inspiration for me (I found it to be quite liberating), but for the general reader it is: informative, insightful and comprehensive. Lawrence Sutin (for the most part) understood the important aspects of Crowley's teachings and of his life. Three or four sections of this book in particular stand out in my mind as being profoundly illuminating and transcendently insightful. This book did something that I have long looked to have done: it put Crowley's life and thus his works in to an understandable and comprehendible context -- it makes the study of those works possible. Thank you Lawrence Sutin; thank you Frater Perdurabo.

"Love is the law, love under will."

Philip K. Dick was a brilliant man who, like many brilliant men, has been posthumously mishandled by editors, biographers, etc. In Pursuit of Valis, I believe, is a further example of this. The editor's introduction is poorly written and riddled with assumptions and errors. The material in the book is choppy and poorly edited. Phil Dick never intended this material to be sold, he never will see any profits on the sale of this book, so who profits from its sale? The editor? His estate? His fans? I don't know. I am sure Sutin is getting his cut. Some of us wish that he would leave Phil Dick alone. But, that aside, if you are going to publish works not written for public consumption, at least do it properly. Surely, the volume could have been edited so as to make the material easier to comprehend? And what of the sloppy printing? Fans of PKD will buy this and enjoy it as they should, because at least we get a glimpse of the man. But at what cost?

Ignore the unfair, flippant comments... Not only is the editor's introduction well-written, but, more importantly, this selection of Dick's Exegesis is absolutely VITAL for anyone who wants a more thorough understanding of his imagination and metaphysical musings. It is not that the book is poorly edited. It is simply that this was never intended for publication. That does not mean that Sutin and the others are a bunch of avaricious oppurtunists... They are not interested in "getting their cut"; they simply want the speculations of an important twentieth-century philosopher to be made available to the reading public. Find some way to get this book...

From the author responsible for "Bladerunner" and "Total Recall" comes this very personal record of schizophrenia, conspiracy and hallucinatory mysticism. The bulk of "Valis" deals with Dick's attempts to understand the teachings of the ancient gnostic Christians - a quest which took on new urgency as Dick came to believe that the Roman Empire was using technology supplied by evil aliens to keep time frozen at 70 A.D. Unforgettable, albeit confusing in parts.