|
Is There an Editor in the House?  Dr. Hill is in dire need of a good editor.
Perhaps I'm hyper-critical when I'm reading, now that I'm a professional editor. I tend to notice mistakes I might not have noticed before. But I don't find that it lessens my enjoyment for reading a good book. Except in this case.
I question whether this book was ever read by an editor or any other educated person prior to publication. Hill's mistakes in grammar and punctuation are sprinkled liberally throughout each page. I became so distracted by the mental count of missing commas, bad grammar, poor sentence structure, and improper word choice that I completely lost track of what the text was trying to say. So then I had to go back and read all the mistakes again!
Beneath the lazy English, there lay a message, I'm sure. But it's coached in such dull, simplistic language that I lost any desire to uncover it. Jung's perspective on marriage and human sexuality is fascinating, I have no doubt. Unfortunately I can't confirm that with Hill's analysis. His discussion of consciousness in the first chapter goes round and round in chicken-egg-chicken fashion, making my head spin. Truly, there must be some synonym for the word "conscious" that might have made this an easier read. On page 14 alone, the word appears more than 40 times, averaging more than seven times per paragraph! And the paragraphs aren't particularly long either.
Did you ever play that game where you repeat a word over and over until it loses all meaning? Try that with the word "conscious" and then try to grasp some deep meaning in an analysis of Jung's theories on consciousness. After about the 15th repetition, the word begins to echo within the chambers of your mind and you might as well put the book down and go drop some acid or something.
I did not get past the first chapter, which is unusual for me. Especially when I'm reading a book for review, I can generally always hang in there for at least half of the text. Unfortunately, I had to cut this one loose. Life's too short to waste on a read like this.
A Window into Eternity
by Robert D. Hill, Psy.D.
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: PublishAmerica (October 1, 2003)
ISBN: 1413701051
| 
Email Article
Print Article
Discuss This (1 Comment)
Del.icio.us
Furl
Technorati
Yahoo! My Web
Reddit
Column Archives
Column RSS Subscription
