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The
Spirit of Family by Al and Tipper Gore Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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256,000 Words If a picture is worth 1,000 words, you can
find 256,000 words in part two of Al and Tipper Gore’s recent book, The
Spirit of Family. I picked over the companion volume, Joined at
the Heart, but couldn’t quite muster the energy to read it. The
Spirit of Family is all photos (except for an introduction), so it didn’t
take very long to page through it the first time. A few days later, I
lingered longer over each image. The Gores are right in that these pictures
tell the story of the diversity of families in America today. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction: We live our lives in the emotional universe of our
families. Love, like gravity, is always there, holding us securely in
place—even as we fall free. In the beginning, when first there is light, we are
entirely dependent on the warmth and nurturing energy of a bright star at the
center of the circle that marks our days. The more we grow, the wider our
gyre. But the pull of our origins is always, always a powerful if invisible
force. At every stage of life, those who are closest to us—parents, brothers,
and sisters; then husbands, wives, and partners; then daughters and sons—all
tug at our orbit and bend our direction, some insistently, others more
faintly. Families are reality, not invention. They are always present, always
remembered, and always hoped for. They are much more than mere associations
of individuals. They have a transcendent integrity of their own. We shape and nurture our families and they shape and
nurture us. And wherever we go in life, our families live in our hearts. The two of us have long been interested in every
aspect of family life, and in early 2001, we began researching a book about
the dramatic changes occurring in American families. We soon realized that
words alone would be insufficient to our task, so we decided to explore this
endlessly fascinating topic using images as well. Two books ultimately
emerged from our efforts: this collection of photographs and a book called Joined
at the Heart: The Transformation of the
American Family. In both, we have attempted to capture the
essence of what family is and how families are changing. With these remarkable
photographs, we try to show that the spirit of family is neither abstract nor
invisible. It can be felt in the indentation of a child's fingers in his
foster mother's cheek; seen in the radiant smiles of aging sisters whose
bonds with each other are always vital; and heard in the clamor and laughter
of three generations crowded around a picnic table. Each of the images in this book tells a story about
family. And each of the families, whether happy or unhappy, is unique. But
the spirit of family is in many ways the same for all of them—and for all of
us. It is a spirit that can seem fleeting and elusive amid the bustle and
noise of our daily lives. But it can be framed clearly in a frozen moment of
time captured by a photographer who blends skill with patience and good
fortune. Seeing clearly is the job of
photographers, and many of those whose work is included in The Spirit
of Family have used the camera as a tool to help them
understand the dynamics of family life and to explore the impact society has
on these essential relationships. Indeed, many of America's finest
photographers have long believed that the greatest subject for their craft is
not wars or the dramatic events of history, but the way people interact with
one another—how they touch; how they hold their children in their arms; how
they get through their day with all the stress, strains, and joys that life
hands them; how they deal with personal pain, illness, loss, and death; and
how one generation relates to the next. In the course of preparing this book,
we reached out across the United States and approached the widest possible
range of American photographers, from established masters to graduate
students in photography. We specifically asked every photographer we contacted to review the images they've recorded that address the subject of family. The response was overwhelming, and we were pleased to discover that some of the most passionate and important—and, in many cases, unpublished—American photography dealt with just this topic. Browsing through the pictures of The
Spirit of Family didn’t make me want to read Joined at
the Heart, but I did think about families, and the thoughts were
pleasant. Steve Hopkins, January 1, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the February 2003
issue of Executive
Times For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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