Rating:  Summary: A good idea, but overworked. Review: The Dice Man is a good idea but hopelessly overworked. The concept of letting an arbitrary force decide the course of your life is interesting, and could even be portrayed as exhilharating, but in the hands of such a verbose, overblown stylist as Luke Rheinhart it quickly looses its appeal.
Rating:  Summary: Review of The Dice Man Review: The revolutionary demeanor of that young man that caused the world to celebrate His birth on December 25 and His apparent demise during the vernal equinox, urged Him to proclaim: "The Kingdom of Heaven (Your Peace) is Within you" not in the Democratic or Republican parties or the Dice!Although I don't have a college education (thank God)when I discovered as a child the similarities between the molecular structure of the Universe and the structure of a molecule, I've always believed that we are merely crystalizations of aggregates of protons and neutrons; positive and negative forces which make up our bodies and guide us by the intelligence buried in those forces of which we are not consciously aware. Diceliving is a means of allowing an inanimate object interrupt the direction and intention of those subatomic forces in its natural ascension to perfection: God or Godhood! Dr. Rhinehart's (I refer to him as doctor out of respect; a principle which he seems to ignore in his treatise) metaphor on how the condition of the 'minority of inner-selves' is similar to the condition of those people in our society termed 'minorities' is brillant. Indeed, America is shortchanging itself in its failure to exploit the productive talents of the 'selves' of its so-called 'minorities'. And its up to each of you to change it! The expression of the 'minority of selves' should be controlled by the natural laws of life just as the sun, moon, and stars obey (without the throw of the die I might add) those laws. "The Die is my shepard I shall not want". This is an incredible statement! This mind does not know that the Dice is a man-made object and has no life of its own much less the power to make decisions about a man's life (and they laughed at Indians seeking advice from a wooden totem pole). Go figure! DiceLiving should be entertained but without the Dice. Greater is that which is IN YOU than that which is in the Die! Dr. Rhinehart came close but chose not to surrender to the Love Thought (Agape). The Love Thought produced those subatomic particles we discussed and applied to potential actions would produce the peace, prosperity, freedom, joy, etc. we all seek. If you don't trust your self and want to give up self, please don't give your self to a pair of Dice. My goodness that's like giving your vote (power) to a Democrat or Republican. Read the book and extract from it those truths that are, in fact, beneficial and respectful of yourself and others. Eon
Rating:  Summary: 1 star is too much. Review: The poor writing style in "The Dice Man" could be forgiven if the story had some value, you could overlook the writing style and concentrate on its message. Unfortunately this book is nothing but the confession of a talent-less attention seeker, an example of the, tragic defect, a need to seek out an external authority to follow and use as an excuse for ones own actions. In this case the chosen authority is not a god, the state, the family or mystery voice but the result of tumbling dice. Like all followers of an "authority" there is a strong need for them to encourage others to share their madness. We see this clearly as the author, a mediocre psychiatrist by his own confession, pushes his "dice living" on his friends and patients, opens dice centers even commits murder. We feel the result as we suffer through his writing in this book Verdict: Unskilled writing style worsened by the length of it. A book outlining the philosophy for a week mind. I laugh at the thought of anybody considering dice living seriously.
Rating:  Summary: The best book I've ever read Review: As I have said, this book is the best book I've ever read. Humorous, reflexive, show us the way to flexibility, surrender and everything to transform, not change, transform your life.
Rating:  Summary: DEGENERATION Review: In the beginning I could not put this book down. It was intelligently and well written and full of promise. The concept of breaking away from traditional thinking experiences and pushing your personal boundaries further and further out was exciting. Good food for thought. Alas, by the middle of the book it became apparent that the dice were taking over authorship, and from then on the story slowly and steadily degenerated into a plotless mess.
Rating:  Summary: Pattern-breaking and the question for "Random" Review: I'm a psychology student and have read this book in a rush during the last 6 hours, then slept heavily and dreamed about the mystique entity of random. This book touches central questions to everybody, and in my eyes it is a key to open a gate but not the road itself; nor is the use of the dice. First, pattern-breaking according to the dice is an interesting method to gain a kind of "freedom" of worn-out habits. In a way, the role-pressure many people experience is thus relieved; in that the book reflects theories of Carl Rogers - but it goes further than these in commanding to behave violent or just according to the "random" whims one of which is being selected by the dice. This method lifts more and more suppressed, unconscious motives onto the silver plate of conciousness and decision - thus leading to the disintegration of the beforhand controlled and confined mind by making "impossible" fantasies possible, thus clinging to an aeon-old human fantasy (even if this fantasy is still restricted). But what then is "Random"? Random lies beween certainty and uncertainty, it corrodes behavioral contingeny (as far at THAT exists...) and prediction. Random is THE POSSIBLE. Possibilities abound, the dice destroys the veil of habit before the eye and mercilessly and indifferently chooses. As far as behaviour is concerned, however, this game can only be played to a certain amount because there ARE certainties: death, aging e.g. Therefore, the ULTIMATE liberation lies not in random. Furthermore, the ALTERNATIVES postulated before a dice-throw are not randomized either. And what if I would say that RANDOM might merely be the absence of knowledge, the black hole that we encircle but cannot (yet?) penetrate, that random does not exist at all but the numbers of the dice are destined...? In the end, the content of the book is the desire for freedom presented in a new coat. A romantic key-term - freedom - is seen as the submission to chance, which is merely a changing of the master (still this could be expanded to an infinite regress, because the old self could be seen as beind randomly installed, whereas the random might be part of the self etc.) and not freedom at all. The cracking of the self into thousand mirror-pieces and melting them into a new Being is a flight from personal responsibility, the total submission obviously deeply implanted in humanity. The hardest - existentialistic and nihilistic - questions "Death is absurd, what am I to do?" and "Death terminates ALL" are being answered by placing the existentialistic guilt on the dice, and suddenly - it opresses no more. "Religion is opium to the people". Everybody has supressed things, dreams, wounds and wishes in his subsconcious sea, freedom is in my eyes the capability and the power to live them out with YOU as the master, with your WILL steering. Strong are those who answer the existentialistic question raised in this book by their POWER. Weakness lies within those in need of a master, with the "fear of freedom". To conclude, a great book with many hints (even if it doesn't seem so here, but I appreciate the freshness of the book), suggesting new ways of thought about old human questions. The melting of the construct of "self" is in my eyes the most interesting topic - the creation of a collective mind (not that WITHIN a person, but that BETWEEN persons) would be another step ahead - but here we touch acclaimed mystic ground...
Rating:  Summary: It changed my life! Review: What can one say? It's simply an education on how peoples attitude to life is suppressed and it's the most important book you'll ever read.
Rating:  Summary: Banging my head against a wall Review: This book could have been incredible. The characters, the orginality. This makes it all the more annoying that the actual narrative is so hit and miss! Maybe this is what you'd expect from dice theory, but Rhineheart keeps on twisting the story from porn to thriller and back again. It is worth reading, but don't be affraid to skip pages.
Rating:  Summary: A bit long... Review: While I found the premise of this book mindblowing and very liberating I felt that it was a very long and tedious read. It could have been summed up in around 250 pages instead of over 400. But other than that the idea that life without a concrete personality is the way to go is an extremely wild thought to ponder. I think you really have to be in the right mood to read this book.
Rating:  Summary: Great Concept, A Bit tedious at times Review: The Diceman is brilliant. Premised on the idea that within each human is the capacity for multiple personalities, Rhinehart urges us to seek out those which are otherwise oppressed- through randomness. The plot twists and turns as the die take the hero through a life of randomness. Most of the time, its insightful, if a bit far-fetched, and witty, if a bit predictable. There are scenes where graphic depiction of sex stands for genuine plot, occaisonally causing the book to drag. All in all, a great read. Reads pretty quickly, keeps you thinking, and engrosses you with a small cast of deep characters. Highly recommend.
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