|
|
A Trip through the Twentieth Century
Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." One cannot glean wisdom from experience without in-depth soul searching, contemplation, and reflection. Boldly, Ms. Colmes invites readers into the intimacy of her past. She bravely reveals herself dancing with demons and then wrestling the deepest meaning from them before hanging them out to dry. Readers can trace her journey to selfhood sentence-by-sentence, page-by-page. From rich little German Jewish kid, to Holocaust refugee, to hippy, to the Gangsta drug underworld, Ms. Colmes gives us a wild ride through the twentieth century. Doris Colmes’ brilliantly written book, The Iron Butterfly, could well be a lusty, adventurous, page-turning novel. Instead it is a thoughtful and self-revealing memoir, full of suffering, pain, and betrayal, while simultaneously being jam-packed with love, survival, redemption, meaning, and hope. The author capitalizes on her involvement — cultural and counter cultural — with the major events of the twentieth century while intertwining a historical and musical perspective. Together, these influences provide a rich backdrop for story. Ms. Colmes doesn’t leave much to the reader’s imagination when it comes to her misadventures. Nothing is done half way; good or bad, she plunges in with gusto. The author says of herself that "though some of (my) adventures were inadvertent (Holocaust, parental abuse), some were fueled by desire. Some hilarious, some sad, some sexy, some scary, some illegal, but all instructive." What is this urge we feel that pulls us toward the light? We lift our faces to the sun, to the origin of warmth, yet life rains on us, and we step in puddles, and sometimes the torrents we create or fall victim to drag us down into the mire. Yet we still feel the urge to lift our heads. Doris Colmes knows with certainty the source behind this urge, and her book radiantly portrays a woman standing tall, facing the light. She has buried the past, shucked the wheat from the shaft, and gifted us with a spiritual sculpture of redemption and of hope for a brighter future. |
