An engaging tale about the meditative life whose hip-hop stylings make the enlightenment lighthearted.
A despondent rapper gets his groove back with the help of an Indian guru in this debut novel–cum–self-help guide.
A-Luv, an American rap superstar and son of Indian immigrants, enjoys a Malibu, California, mansion along with “an iced-out Rolex, massive diamonds in his ears, and countless rings and bracelets.” But his bling-obsessed ethos has saddled him with depression, loneliness, drug addiction, and a creative drought. His agent steers him to the Indian town of Laxman Jhula, by the holy River Ganges in the Himalayan foothills, and to Guddu, a jeweler and spiritual leader of a yoga retreat center. Guddu has an “inner glow that feels pure” and a thunderous laugh—“AH ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!”—that echoes through the book. A-Luv agrees to learn about his “high vibe lifestyle,” based on Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Central to the creed is a mystic metaphysics, which maintains that “everyone is made of energy, which means we’re all the same inside, and connected,” and advocates the quieting of the egoistic, ever distracted “monkey mind” through the cultivation of the soul’s awareness by meditation. Guddu’s fetching assistant, Nikki, puts A-Luv through meditative exercises, like staring at a candle flame. Soon, his awareness and powers of concentration burgeon along with his attraction to Nikki. A dangerous whitewater rafting trip down the Ganges with Guddu teaches A-Luv more lessons on the “Five Fingers of Life,” a doctrine that emphasizes being present in the moment, accepting and dealing with the world even when it’s capsizing your raft, and treating life as a flow of playfulness and creativity. Seth, an entrepreneur and music producer, conveys the warmhearted book’s sometimes-esoteric Eastern wisdom in a down-to-earth way. The mechanics of meditation are illustrated in a straightforward fashion (“Focus on the rhythm and the sensations of your breathing. The warmth of the air, the sensations in your nose”). And the basic insights—focus, avoid neurotic rumination, take things as they come—are couched in pragmatic Western tones (“You can’t eliminate head trash without changing your beliefs”). The author’s prose is a bit didactic, but A-Luv’s common touch—“Almost every person I admire has meditation as a common denominator….I was like yo, maybe this is for real”—keeps things reasonably fresh.
An engaging tale about the meditative life whose hip-hop stylings make the enlightenment lighthearted.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0553-4
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Flow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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