Controversial guru Lenz (Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation, not reviewed) uses snowboarding as a metaphor for the path to enlightenment in this slick, how-to guide to Tibetan Buddhismanother hybrid of a novel originally self-published. Giving a fictional presentation to supposedly real experiences, Lenz portrays himself as a spiritually naive, all- American boy who has come to Katmandu simply to find the ultimate snowboarding challenge. One day he literally runs into a mysterious Tantric Buddhist monk, Master Fwap, who, apart from being able to fly and read minds, turns out to be the last surviving member of an esoteric Tibetan order. The Master makes our author his disciple, informing him that he will attain enlightenment at age 29 on account of his having been enlightened in former lives. Fwap then discourses on such topics as the nature of Samadhi, the interplay between free will and karma, and the importance of developing a higher, intuitive mind. Happiness and enlightenment are available within us if only we learn to meditate and to open the Third Eye. Fwap's advice, which often sounds more like Zen than Tantra, makes no reference to the fierce struggles and renunciation that the tradition envisages for those who would attain enlightenment in a single lifetime, nor to the fact that the usual metaphor for this heroic endeavor is the ascent of a mountain. Instead, our snowboarding author is exhorted to ``become the board'' and, having thus learnt the principle of perfect action, to go on and become rich and famous—which in fact Lenz has done. Recent allegations of cult activity and sexual impropriety by Lenz have been reported in Wired magazine and the New York Times. As a result, Warner, the author's original publisher, dropped the book, for which a 100,000- copy first printing had been announced. Students of Buddhism will find nothing new here, while the general reader will be disconcerted by the absence of boundaries between fact and fiction. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-14147-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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