A sturdy, comprehensive look at the Dalai Lama and his tumultuous world.
A biography of the famed spiritual leader who has lived through complex and contentious times.
British journalist Norman (Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama: The Untold Story of the Holy Men Who Shaped Tibet, From Pre-History to the Present Day, 2010, etc.), who has collaborated with the Dalai Lama on three books, including his autobiography, brings well-grounded authority to his portrayal of a figure revered throughout the world for his joyfulness, generosity, and compassion. Born in 1935, Tenzin Gyatso was identified as the 14th Dalai Lama when he was 2 years old, on the basis of several miraculous occurrences and the child’s demonstration of occult power. Although the author acknowledges that “the skeptical reader will doubtless see this whole account as a classic example of myth-making,” he underscores the Buddhist perspective that “the way things really are” does not depend on empirical verification. Norman vividly depicts the “enchanted” world from which the Dalai Lama emerged, where “every feature of the landscape and every creature dwelling within it falls under the aegis of some sprite or spirit or deity.” Rich in spirituality, Tibet nevertheless was a poor, isolated country. As the Dalai Lama grew up, though focused intensively on his spiritual education, he came to realize that social, political, and material reforms were urgently needed. At 14, he met a foreigner for the first time: a 33-year-old Austrian mountaineer who became his informal tutor, responding to the “boundlessly curious” young man’s many questions about the Western world. Norman lucidly traces the Dalai Lama’s spiritual and academic education, his growing awareness of the internal and external political conflicts that threatened Tibet, and his reluctant decision to go into exile when China invaded the country. At 24, when he led 80,000 Buddhists into India, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru found him “exasperatingly naïve.” The Precious Protector, as he was known, gradually evolved into an astute, occasionally controversial, leader, resolute in his harsh dealings with dissent among rival schools within the Buddhist tradition and eventually renouncing his efforts for Tibet’s independence.
A sturdy, comprehensive look at the Dalai Lama and his tumultuous world.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-41658-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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