Night thoughts

Shawn (Essays), an actor and Obie-winning playwright, reflects on civilization, morality, Beethoven, 11th-century Japanese court poetry, and his hopes for a better world, among other topics. Acerbic yet compassionate, Shawn's meditations epitomize qualities he admires-curiosity, thoughtfulness, sharp logic, deep emotion-and sees getting short shrift in a United States abandoning "the cultivation of the intellect." Born to privilege, he admits to being one of the "lucky," a group encompassing "a very large number of the citizens of the United States and Great Britain and most European countries" who largely owe their prosperity to the "unjust exploitation" of the "unlucky." And although he, for various reasons, proved "downwardly mobile" (his position in society is lower than his parents'), he knows his "luck has held." With impeccable logic, he gently, but lethally, skewers the complacency of the lucky while highlighting the plight of the less fortunate, including the Muslims living in the slums of European cities, the maid of a wealthy friend, and a boy at a dance who shoots someone flirting with his girlfriend. And he is quick to confront his own privileged status after a "big storm" when he's faced with days of no running water or heat-and no one coming to fix things-and feels disoriented, "as if a lifetime's worth of assumptions were uncontrollably unspooling." (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The acclaimed actor and playwright offers a brief, disturbing meditation on the "story of civilization.""I'm upset about what my species has turned out to bethe species that went mad and destroyed the planet," writes Shawn (Essays, 2010, etc.) in this jeremiad about the state of humanity. Anyone who has seen the author's plays knows that he is drawn to the dark side of existence, and the current political climate has darkened his mood further. After spending a night watching TV news in a hotel room, he wonders if the world will ever stop rewarding "people like Trump, whose frighteningly bloated, distended, almost-bursting egos and paranoid eyes scanning the horizon for enemies seem to thrill so many people." That's all the impetus needed for Shawnwho grew up privileged in a fancy New York apartment with rooms "full of ashtrays and bourbon" and with a father, New Yorker editor William Shawn, who believed that civilization was justified because it produced Beethovento expound upon the ills of modern society. He packs a lot into 80 pages, including discussions of the Islamic State, Yemen, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Marxism, and the diminishment of morality. The world, writes the author, is divided into the lucky and the unlucky. The latter have a perpetual grievance against the former, which is why no one should be surprised when, say, followers of Islam rise up against Western powers or when British and European Muslims react against "the suffering of fellow Muslims in Gaza or Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan." Shawn offers suggestions for a better civilization but with the caveat that he doubts such a world will ever come about. Though the narrative structure feels random at times, readers can't deny the veracity of the author's claims, and many will share his anger when he writes about "egomaniacs who are always ready to scoop up power for their own warped purposes." Not an optimistic picture but perceptive and forcefully argued. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.