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Summary
Summary
Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father's) for the last three decades-a continuing exploration of his message and its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama's position- though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity. Moving from Dharamsala, India-the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile-to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama's pragmatism, rigour, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This is a brilliant pairing of writer and subject. Iyer has known the Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of Tibet, for more than 30 years, thanks to a long-ago connection between the writer's father, an Oxford don born in India, and a young Dalai Lama. And so the acute global observer Iyer, a travel writer, essayist and novelist, has long followed the fortunes of the astute globalist Tibetan Buddhist, who travels the world but can never go home to his Chinese-occupied country. This is not a biography but an extended journalistic analysis of someone deep enough for several lifetimes, as Tibetan Buddhists believe. Iyer organizes his observations by smart descriptions of aspects of the Dalai Lama's work and character: icon, monk, philosopher, politician. This allows him to plumb different sides of His Holiness, whom he demythologizes even as he expresses a clear-eyed respect for the leader's achievements. Iyer reminds readers of paradoxes: the Dalai Lama is highly empirical, yet holds beliefs such as reincarnation that defy observation. He is a public figure who is diligent about elaborate and private religious practices. Like its subject, the aim of this book is ultimately simple: behold the man. (Apr. 3) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* A mindful world wanderer and renowned travel writer, Iyer has a 30-year connection to the Dalai Lama stemming from a meeting between Iyer's philosopher father and the Dalai Lama shortly after his dramatic escape from Tibet in the wake of the Chinese invasion. Iyer has often arranged to be in the same place at the same time as the Dalai Lama, and he now reports on the beloved spiritual celebrity in action. His coverage includes vivid descriptions of the highly charged atmosphere of Dharamsala, the capital of Tibet-in-exile; surreal aspects of the Dalai Lama's ecstatic reception at his numerous appearances; and the profoundly mysterious elements of the Dalai Lama's private and almost unimaginable Tibetan world, the realm of oracles and reincarnation. In the book's most inquisitive passages, Iyer offers rare insights into contradictory roles the Dalai Lama plays as a monk with a passion for science; a philosophic, exiled leader of an occupied nation that is threatened with extinction; and an icon espousing global ethics. The combination of Iyer's exacting observations, incisive analysis, and frank respect for the unknowable results in a uniquely internalized, even empathic portrait of one of the world's most embraced and least understood guiding lights.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Prolific travel writer, journalist and novelist Iyer (Sun After Dark: Flights Into the Foreign, 2004, etc.) turns his judicious eye on the 14th Dalai Lama, with whom he has been acquainted for more than 30 years. As a 17-year-old, the author traveled with his father into the Indian mountains and was introduced to the Dalai Lama, an encounter that struck him as a profound departure from the real world. The book takes its title from D.H. Lawrence, who once declared the open road to be "the great home of the Soul." The most iconic Tibetan in the world has devoted his adult life to travel and encounters with strangers. The only Dalai Lama ever to have been outside of Tibet, he finds every door open to him, it seems, except the one that would welcome him back to the Chinese-occupied country of his birth. Described by the author as a "hyperrealist," the Dalai Lama resides in the present moment more fully than in any geographical location. Iyer's study includes a first-person account of interactions with his subject, as well as an incisive analysis of the modern relevance of Tibetan Buddhism and its leader. His portrait is entirely human, offering vignettes that convey multiple dimensions of the Dalai Lama's personality, from his sense of humor and distinctive laughter to his political views and, in the words of Iyer's father, "the freshness of [his] immense personal purity." Questions about reality, existence, reincarnation and idolatry make this book resonate as an examination into subjects more substantial than one man's life--the values that the Dalai Lama imparts have global reach and consequences. Nonfiction of the highest caliber: fascinating and thorough, but never sycophantic or overly familiar. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The noteworthy author/journalist on the significance of his father's friend, the Dalai Lama. With a seven-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.