{"id":2252,"date":"2013-06-01T11:59:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T16:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2013-06-01T11:59:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T16:59:46","slug":"your-saturday-book-review-the-philosophers-apprentice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/?p=2252","title":{"rendered":"Your Saturday Book Review — The Philosopher’s Apprentice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After hearing an interview on NPR with author, James Morrow, I went to a bookstore (Remember those?) <\/em>to search for a copy of his then new novel, The Philosopher’s Apprentice<\/em>.<\/a> I couldn’t remember the title, but when I described the plot \u2013 teacher, remote island, mysterious happenings — the clerk thought I was talking about The Magus<\/a><\/em>, a book which bears almost no resemblance to this one. The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/a> <\/em>would be getting warmer.<\/p>\n

<\/a>The island here is off the coast of Florida, the teacher a brilliant philosophy graduate student who has just blown his thesis on principle. . He is offered a job by a billionaire scientist who tells him her teenage daughter was in a diving accident and suffered damage resulting in the loss of her moral conscience. His mission is to guide her in developing a sense of ethics. It’s an offer too tempting to refuse, especially given the $100,000 salary. Of course, once he arrives, things aren’t what they seem and yadda, yadda, yadda.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>Most of the action takes place years after the island sojourn when his pupil has made her way into the world, intent on changing it.<\/p>\n

While the book clearly falls into the sci-fi genre, the author is after bigger fish, taking on bioethics and religion with satiric aim. Whether or not he succeeds may be subjective. The better-half felt Morrow went too far and sometimes missed the mark. (Several reviewers agree.) But I found the story entertaining and thought provoking throughout though at times Morrow’s reach may have <\/em>exceeded his grasp.<\/p>\n

While a knowledge of western philosopher (among other things) is not a necessary prerequisite to the enjoyment of the book, it couldn’t hurt. It’s certainly worth checking out especially for well-read fans of satire.<\/p>\n

(Apology: I have been slow on getting these reviews out and didn’t post last week. I guess I’m kind of depressed because my own books<\/a> haven’t been selling lately. Check them out, why don’t you?)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After hearing an interview on NPR with author, James Morrow, I went to a bookstore (Remember those?) to search for a copy of his then new novel, The Philosopher’s Apprentice. I couldn’t remember the title, but when I described the plot \u2013 teacher, remote island, mysterious happenings — the clerk thought I was talking about … Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review — The Philosopher’s Apprentice<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[107,55],"tags":[690,692,691],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2255,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marioninnyc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}