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
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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