Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Coles, Robert - Jeff Dietrich (review date 13 September 1987)

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Jeff Dietrich (review date 13 September 1987)

SOURCE: "Simone Fasted, Dorothy Fed," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 13, 1987, p. 23.

[In the following review, Dietrich examines the figures at the center of Coles' biographical studies Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage and Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion.]

One woman spent her entire life feeding the hungry, while the other died a premature death of voluntary starvation. Though Dorothy Day and Simone Weil were Christian mystics who developed a remarkably similar critique of modern Western culture based upon their deep spiritual integrity, they were radically different personalities, representing radically different strains of Christian spirituality.

In the tradition that he has established in such previous work as Children of Crisis and Women of Crisis, Robert Coles, Harvard psychologist and social critic, offers an illuminating perspective on the moral...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Melvin J. Friedman (review date Fall 1982)
   2. Neil Postman (review date 19 January 1986)
   3. Katherine Paterson (review date 2 February 1986)
   4. Jonathan Kellerman (review date 9 February 1986)
   5. New Yorker (review date 10 February 1986)
   6. John Leo (review date 17 March 1986)
   7. Kenneth L. Woodward (review date 6 September 1987)
   8. Jeff Dietrich (review date 13 September 1987)
   9. Fitzhugh Mullan (review date 8 May 1988)
   10. Helen Bevington (review date 26 February 1989)
   11. Francis X. Rocca (review date March 1989)
   12. Iain Bamforth (review date 7-13 July 1989)
   13. Sanford Pinsker (essay date Summer 1989)
   14. Herbert Mitgang (review date 21 November 1990)
   15. Laura Sessions Stepp (review date 23 December 1990)
   16. The New Yorker (review date 7 January 1991)
   17. Virginia C. Hoch (review date 26 August-2 September 1992)
   18. A. J. S. (review date 1993)
   19. Michelle Huneven (essay date 3 October 1993)
   20. Robert A. Sirico (review date 15 November 1993)
   21. Gail Russell Chaddock (review date 9 December 1993)
   22. Ed Walraven (essay date 1994)
   23. Paulina F. Kernberg (review date October 1994)
   24. Richard Bernstein (review date 27 January 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright