Philosophy Made Simple: A Novel
Robert Hellenga
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2006 Little, Brown & Co.
ISBN: 0316058262

A widower puts the Chicago family home up for sale & buys an avocado grove in Texas.

Rudy Harrington has spent half his life in that rambling house, raising Meg, Molly & Margot, with his independent-minded wife. But after Helen dies & his daughters move away, he becomes restless, wanting to find some answers to life's Big Questions.

Rudy's been selling avocados in the South Water Street Market for decades & knows a thing or two about them, so when the widow of a supplier he knows, suggests he buy their avocado grove, Rudy jumps at the chance to shuck himself free from his old life.

Now transplanted in his new vocation, carrying a little book one of his daughters gave him -- Philosophy Made Simple -- he begins to struggle with the great thinkers of the past. What he's also struggling with is the aftermath of a heart attack which he hasn't told anyone. While he's wrapping his mind around Plato & Aristotle, Hume & Schopenhauer, & making new & interesting friends, especially the wise & beautiful Maria Gracia, Molly announces she's getting married, in a Hindu ceremony.

If you haven't read The Sixteen Pleasures, you won't know some of the characters, however, it's not a problem because you get to know a whole new tribe -- including an elephant. You have got to meet Norma Jean!

A fine manly read -- an allegory -- with both serious themes: love & death, marriage & family, right & wrong (Robert Hellenga posits that all the women know so much more about life than his hero), & some humorous scenes that will have you thinking about being present on the journey rather than merely waiting for the destination.

More from Robert Hellenga:
Blues Lessons
The Fall of the Sparrow
(04/23/06)

Rebecca