Swanson lives this journey like a Tibetan Buddhist, on the boundaries between here and there, at one with the everyday...
A grumbling, finely attuned voyage—both keen and keening, pilgrimage and good-works project—into Tibet.
More than a casual spiritualist—the disciplines he has browsed comprise “a list like Homer’s catalogue of ships,” and once, “during a visit to Berkeley, I had my aura cleaned”—Swanson (The Boy in the Lake, 1999, etc.) has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism since 1995. His journey with his lama combines his own medical and logistical work with the personal agendas of his mostly American traveling band of half a dozen. Except for digestible forays into Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, to duhkha and trishna and shunyata, and neat little re-creations of a time when the adept Padmasambhava resided in a cave in the mountains of Nangchen in Tibet’s Kham region, Swanson focuses on the particulars of his journey. While he would love to reach the cave where Padmasambhava stayed, he is just as riveted by the night sky on the Tibetan Plateau—with its air that tastes almost metallic, its piercing green valleys, and its people—though he is not so joyous about the food or a certain pervasive stink. He is always aware of the irony of his spiritual quest in a land posted with signs warning “Recognition of Reincarnated Individuals Strictly Prohibited,” and having the Carpenters blaring from a boom box when he enters the sacred precincts of Kham on a bus he first encounters as it “coughs and lumbers, dragonlike,” from the depot. His spirituality, though lightly worn, is heartfelt, and his forlornness at not reaching the cave is palpable.
Swanson lives this journey like a Tibetan Buddhist, on the boundaries between here and there, at one with the everyday shuffle of finding toilet paper as he moves through the dreamscape of a land that could be “the Moon, the South Pole, the Antipodes of legend.”Pub Date: April 3, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-26693-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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