From Publishers Weekly
Mishra (The Romantics) offers an ambitious "book-length essay" that combines an overview of the life, times and teachings of the Buddha with personal anecdotes and extended multidisciplinary forays into realms such as ancient and modern history, philosophy, politics and literary criticism. If Mishra's approach is broad, it is also deep and often effective. For example, his close reading of early Indian scriptures and his historical-political examination of the Buddha's society bring to life a "half-mythical antiquity" that, in turn, helps the reader see the Buddha's teachings afresh: not as generic spiritual truisms but rather as specific responses to particular religious and social conditions. Yet the book fails to anchor its broad perspective in a strong central thesis. While it follows the chronology of the Buddha's life, Mishra intersperses whole chapters exploring topics such as "The Death of God" and "Empires and Nations." These discussions of Nietzsche's opinions of the Buddha or Zen Buddhism's endorsement of Japanese imperialism are themselves compelling, but feel disjointed. Mishra also frequently shifts the focus to his own life; sometimes this artfully illustrates a point, but at other times it borders on the self-indulgent. Nevertheless, for serious readers the book is a rich and challenging—if sometimes meandering—invitation to explore the Buddha's legacy across centuries, continents and cultures.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From The New Yorker
For more than a decade, Mishra tells us, he has pondered a book about the Buddha—whether a historical novel about Siddhartha Gautama, the man who brought about "a revolution of ideas in North India" more than two and a half millennia ago, or a study of his teachings and their influence on Western writers. But, as these projects foundered, Mishra came to accept that his own journey of self-discovery was beginning. The final product mixes an account of the Buddha with the story of Mishra's path from Mashobra, a Himalayan village near the Buddha's birthplace, to the far reaches of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and beyond. Mishra offers glimpses of the "restless, grasping selves" he has shed—alienated student in Allahabad, ambitious but unfulfilled writer in London—as he struggles to reconcile lessons of the Buddha's life with his own shifting world.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
