Review: "MASTERY", by Robert Greene
I picked up book “MASTERY” by Robert Greene in local bookshop, just by looking inside and reading a few lines.
The cover saying: “Bestselling author of THE 48 LAWS OF POWER” didn’t appeal to me at all.
I would never judge the book by the description “bestseller" on it. For me, it is sign that the book is superimposed over the reader’s sovereign right to choose independently.
I appreciated energy and experience concentrated within the book. Conclusions resonated with me not because they are new or brought me a new perspective. The opposite. I already reached them in my life, and I agree on their validity and applicability.
I liked that the author doesn’t force upon a reader his point of view, but giving an example from the lives of many individuals in the history. Showing how they were fighting with their own inner urge, which directed them generally to the opposite side than their surroundings were going.
They resisted suggestions, habits, prejudices because their feelings, needs and especially inner urging were guiding them through the unexplored fields. And this – their power to choose for themselves – made them known centuries, made them famous, loved, valued and sometimes unrivaled.
Capacities such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Martha Graham, Carl Jung, V.S. Ramachandran, or Johann Wolfgang Goethe, are only a few from the masters.
Author recognized that there is not a “universal” way and especially “suggested” way to mastery. Mastery starts with going inward and finding “who you really are”.
This seems to be the greatest obstacle on the way for many people. The trends, mode and manipulative force of media are predominantly the path which people are following in the present world. But it is not their path. It is the path of someone else.
I would like to cite from the book:
“People are increasingly reluctant to tell each other the truth about themselves – their weaknesses, their inadequacies, flaws in their work. Even the self-help books designed to set us straight tend to be soft and flattering, telling us what we want to hear – that we are basically good and can get what we want by following a few simple steps. It seems abusive or damaging to people’s self-esteem to offer them stern, realistic criticism, to set them tasks that will make them aware of how far they have to go. In fact, this indulgence and fear of hurting people’s feelings is far more abusive in the long run. It makes it hard for the people to gauge where they are or to develop self-discipline. It makes them unsuited for the rigors of the journey to mastery. It weakens people’s will. Masters are those who by nature have suffered to get to where they are. “
I doubt that this book is widely read, or widely understood. I doubt it because I know that person picking up this book in a bookshop, or even open to search for, is a person with some “high” level of bad life -experiences. Because only bad experiences force people to think about the reasons (if they didn’t bend under the burdens and withstand).
And for a person, who passed through them victoriously, they functioned as a stimuli for deeper analyses of own life, own deeds, routines, habits, suggestions, influences of others, especially of those who he/she considered “authority”, be it is parent, teacher, friend, spouse, book, belief, god, etc.
Authority playing very strong role in our lives; however it is a move from outer authorities to inner authority which brings the wisdom and allows wider perspective.
It also expects a great courage to self-analyze and disconnect ourselves from manipulative force of those, who didn’t arrive there yet.
Author evidently overcame all of hurdles on this road and found also the strength to convey his realizations to others.
I’m just realistic about the world where we are living, which just showing the majority of lazy people without any self-discipline, without any will to learn and self-improve, without any own opinion, addicted to the help, service and providing of others.
And when the “suffering” enters their lives, they just submit, suffer for suffering, or for the sake of wrong religious suggestions, habitual up-bringing or even taking own suffering to misuse others help, impose their personal needs over others, but do not fight, do not even try, just survive.
So in these consequences to call this book “bestseller” is just “fiction”.
Does this “bestselling” designation speak for growing quantity of selective readers (on Amazon?) or about mass mastery within the nations?
I would say, that many people who bought that book, just followed the trend, placed it to their shelves, never read. Just typical example of those who really are not “masters”.
I’m happy that the book like “MASTERY” appeared between the publications of “traditional” publisher.
As I’m happy with the content of the book, I’m very disappointed with the cover and the whole layout inside the book.
The cover cannot even come near to description “artistic” or “professional”. Golden color of two high triangles, and name of the book in golden color between? - Pure kitsch.
If the person who made that cover has a bit of taste, he would use the black background and make just name of the book in gold. It would be simple but with taste. However missing sense for visual appeal and for the formatting of the cover predicted the same for interior.
As I said that the content was for me very interesting I have to admit that reading this book was very hard.
It looks like old textbooks without any formatting for students of universities from 70’s. Chapters and subchapters are not clearly differentiated, starting in the same page where the previous finished; headings are very diverse, sometimes starting with the numbers, sometimes not.
The top of disorganization is the table of contents which is messy, disarranged and rather to be lost in not to find anything. Sense for order and organization evidently didn’t play any role in typesetting of this book.
And my trained look just picked up all formatting mistakes as first impression. Numbers of pages distracted, some jumping up, some down, two font sizes in one number, different font sizes in one paragraph, and even different fonts of numbers in one section.
The book was evidently formatted as e-book with flowing text and then (as a sign of saving money?) just complemented by footers with page numbers and printed as a paperback. “MASTERY” was published by VIKING PENGUIN, member of Penguin Group Inc., the famous publisher with years of experience.
Considering the seriousness and authority of the publisher, this was missed shot.
There is a very big difference between formatting e-books and printed books. If you are attempting to use e-book format for printed or printed format for e-book, it will always end as a failure.
As a traditional publisher stepping to the second century of its existence, proud of the authors they are publishing (Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Helen Fielding, Geraldine Brooks, J.M. Coetzee and others, many winners of Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and national awards) supposed to follow a higher standard, not only in contents but in appearance and design.
This book has 352 pages, is printed on beige standard paper, bound as a paperback. To make proper formatting would add some pages, but it would also add a better reading experience.
As I looked through the book it remained me a bouquet of roses which I recently received. The roses were beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy them, because they were “arranged” in the middle of the green leaves hiding the roses from every angle.
Evidently, unskilled florist bound that flowers, forgetting one important thing – they are for showing off. So I unbound them and made the bouquet by myself.
But you cannot buy book, come home, unbound it and remake it for your convenience.
It is possible only with e-books. You can choose format, font, font size, color of the font.
E-books seem to be a big challenge for all traditional publishers, who still in their stereotype can miss the train. With all inflexible approaches, crowds of agents, financial conditions, marketing tricks, exclusive rights and minimal royalties for authors altogether with author’s zero influence on the final product, traditional publishers must show more.
I think that for 18 U.S. $, in a growing market of e-books, customer (not master) will rather buy 3 or more e-books than one paperback, and yet poorly executed.
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