By Pico Iyer.
Knopf.
At the center of today’s conflicts and aspirations, the Dalai Lama stands as an embodiment in proxy for his stolen and decimated nation (China began to invade in 1949), but also an example of nonviolence and reconciliation. From humble village origins to a state of virtual divine rule as a child, through war and genocide, into exile, he has moved onto a global stage as a pragmatic political warrior rather than a refugee. Seen by some as a living Buddha, and yet by others as simplistic in his views and approaches either too forgiving and peaceable to effect true political change, or else too holy to be taken seriously the leader of Tibet-in-exile is an enigma perfectly suited for author Pico Iyer’s talents of equivocal observation and outside-the-box analysis. His presence brings up the difficulties of incarnation of the divine, but also the ironies of human expectation. Though he can’t please everyone he advocates reconciliation with China rather than a surely justifiable Tibetan revolution, for example the Dalai Lama walks deftly the tightrope of “spiritual celebrity.” He holds the equivalent of a rigorous Ph.D., but speaks simply so that even a child can understand.
Pico Iyer, via Santa Barbara and Oxford, and of East Indian parentage, has been on the beat of global irony for three decades, searching with wit and sympathy for the culture emerging from incongruous meetings and unexpected appropriations. The title alone of his earlier book, Video Night in Kathmandu,suggests no cultural region can exist separately, without infection or inspiration from all others. Though Hollywood and Bollywood seem culturally dominant, an equal influence from traditional sources pushes back. A peripatetic travel essayist, Iyer seeks those nexus regions where, despite seemingly “falling off the map,” the world works out the complications of the “Global Soul.” What are self, home and spirit in the face of seeming mono-cultural and technological developments?
Iyer’s father, the Oxford/UCSB professor Raghavan Iyer, went to meet the young Tenzing Gyatso in 1960, shortly after the Lama had been forced to flee to Dharamsala, India, where Tibet’s exile government is based. He brought back for the young Pico a devotional picture of the Dalai Lama, which came to symbolize a far-away and exotic land, and also the Gandhian political and spiritual engagement his father studied. When that photo and all he owned were burned in a wildfire that consumed his family’s Santa Barbara mountain home, Pico Iyer was thrown into an exile parallel to that of the Tibetan. Living in Japan, but also experimentally in airports, he’s regularly on the open road with the Dalai Lama and allowed close personal access to the man, not just the leader or guru.
Being a non-Buddhist agnostic, yet son of a man who was regarded as Teacher and an embodiment of Krishna by his followers in the S.B. Lodge of Theosophists (the Dalai Lama once spoke in their little hall), Iyer’s views are particularly convoluted, personal and revealing. He neither believes nor disbelieves. This reviewer, once a member of that Theosophy group (founded by Iyer’s parents), recalls one night where Pico Iyer spoke on esoteric themes. It was said that he’d off-handedly called us “dopey-gopis,” after the erotically Krishna-obsessed milkmaids of ancient lore. A telling remark, especially in light of the Dalai Lama’s recommendations to not follow him, nor become a Buddhist per se, but rather to seek to live a larger, better, more compassionate life, within one’s own traditions. Iyer’s book, lucidly involved and yet complexly skeptical, is a window into the shared admixture, possibility and conflict in our negotiated and embattled present.
This article appears in Ends Meet.
I hope potential readers of Pico Iyer’s “Open Road” will not be put off by this review. I am finding the book a real labor of love (Iyer has said in interviews that he spent 5 years on the book – far longer than any other book of his) and a jewel with many facets. The book is as multidimensional as its subject matter, H.H. Dalai Lama. There are wonderfully clear and sympathetic explanations of Buddhism – with emphasis on its practical, existential value. Streufert’s characterizations of Iyer’s skepticism, convolution and equivocation are very misleading, to this reader’s mind, and are perhaps better applied (as is often the case with critics) to the review, and not the reviewed.
The perspective of the review seems strangely from the outside, as if the book hasn’t really been read at all, a kind of speculation: “What if the author of the head-spinning ‘Falling off the Map’or ‘The Global Soul’ were to write on the Dalai Lama?” Streufert fails to note the most compelling reason why the “Tibet-in-exile is an enigma perfectly suited for author Pico Iyer’s talents of equivocal observation and outside-the-box analysis.” It has nothing to do with Iyer’s writing voice or past projects. It is a unique personal history of 33 years of meetings with H.H., a personal acquaintance inherited from Iyer’s father. Streufert fails to mention the book’s wealth of unique personal anecdotes, the striking imagery of modern Dharamsala, and the often simple diction and sustained inquiry (mirroring a Buddhist-like eye for essentials) that contrasts Iyer’s voice here with previous work. Add to that, the Time Magazine journalist’s extensive research, and his ability to frame the modern moment in a vast and complex history – and you have very rich and unusual book indeed.
Iyer’s book is important, too, in exploring how the popularity of the Dalai Lama creates a kind of screen that hides his true power, intelligence, and attainments. The worship of celebrity, Iyer stresses, is ultimately a poor compensation for taking the human reality of the man to heart (where alone it can effect lasting change.)
Streufert’s last paragraph, a sort of weird confusion of personal anecdote, is perhaps intended to claim from the reader an authority argumentum ad hominem that his foregoing review lacks. But for the reviewer to spend one-forth of his article in a logical fallacy – especially when careful reasoning (the Geluk tradition of Tibetan Buddhism) is the major thread of Iyer’s book – is irony itself.
NOTE: First, as the writer of the above review, let me note that the grammatical errors in it are not from my copy, but were due to an editorial error at the NCJ.
SECOND PART:
I would argue again that the MOST characteristic element in Pico Iyer’s writings has always been equivocation and a sense of ironic juxtaposition–it is this that gives the interesting contrasts and ironies to his work. It is here in this book, as well. NOT as in common parlance; this is not "irony" of a bitter sense, but rather the ironic as it is revealed when one thing is different or varied from expectations, often revealing its opposite character. And "equivocal" simply means considering something from multiple angles, the undecided quality of things in constant change and adaptation. This is a mature, sensible view of the world as it is today, rather than the rigid conviction that the commenter seems to desire. This is NOT an advocate’s book on Buddhism, but an analysis of a real man living a very interesting life of multiple roles. The Dalai Lama is at once a traditional leader of an ancient culture, a god-king, as well as a politician and a real-world pragmatist and globalist. He seeks to reform and modernize his tradition every bit as much as he seeks to enact political reform and evolution of human ethics. "The Open Road" is not a hagiography; but neither does it discount the value of religious tradition.
This review sought to place this book into the context of Iyer’s previous writings, and to provide perspective on its subject and author that one could not necessarily encounter in the dozens of other published reviews on the subject. It was limited to only six hundred words, and so had to be very brief. A book synopsis it is not. The review DOES mention the author’s long relationship with the Lama, and it seeks to reveal Iyer as much as the Lama, both of whom are living in the difficulty of that world of change and constant need for evolving perspectives. The last paragraph is not an ad hominem, nor a fallacy, for it is NOT an attack. It is meant to convey the analytical engagement Iyer has always shown, one where he could speak from the podium to an audience of the spiritually enchanted while remaining himself critical. “Critical” here, lest we have further misunderstanding, does not mean “disparaging.” Rather it means being rationally engaged with one’s subject, considering its many aspects, thinking it over. This is what Iyer does in his book. He does not accept the teachings of the Lama blindly, though he does obviously love the man. He sees value in Tibetan Buddhist thought and ethics, but also lengthily considers their relevancy to today’s world. He also constantly considers the follies of unconsidered belief. It is not a sin to critically analyze our heroes and great exemplars; but there is a problem when we make graven idols of them and become reactionary at perceived insults to them. I would counsel the commenter to consider this ethic, and its place within Ethics and Buddhist thought.
THIRD PART:
To every one: this is a great book. Run out and get it, whether or not you are a Buddhist. Tibet is perhaps the most heartbreaking current example of cultural assimilation and genocide in the world today. One of the world’s most sophisticated and advanced cultures, sadly, its homeland is being turned into a Chinese "pleasure city" for gamblers, prostitution, and cheap tourism. Read this book, read the others such as Avedon’s "In Exile from the Land of Snows," or Mary Craig’s "Tears of Blood." Learn. Do something.
(Look, I just wrote nearly 800 words. I could have been paid $40.00 for this!)
NCJ WEB SITE ERROR. CORRECTED FIRST PART: As regards the previous Comments (by gnothi_sauton), let me say the following. The reader neglects to notice that this is a positive review. One must, I see, be careful not to step on the toes of true believers. Iyer himself indicates often that he is NOT a Buddhist practitioner, just as he was not a disciple of his father and Theosophy. He did speak at the Lodge in Santa Barbara that this reviewer attended (where I was acquainted with him), but he was not one of the “gopis” of which he quipped. This was a light-hearted joke, surely, as it was made to a theosophist. There is MUCH in Iyer’s writings that indicates the influence of his father, just as there is a great sympathy for the various cultures and religions he encounters in his travels and depicts in his writings. BUT he does remain skeptical in the sense of continuing to critique their relevancy and their possible follies.
“Gnothi Sauton” hides behind an apparent pseudonym: Greek, for "Know Thyself," as inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece. Come out, Mr./Mrs./Mz. "Ghothi," reveal thyself and thine holy bias.
Dear Steve,
I was sorry about my comment, with all of its shortcomings, and came online to remove it, when I read your recent installment. Now I’m glad I shot my arrow (“hiding behind gnothi_sauton”) because your answer richly complements the original review, and gives you a broader platform (1400 words total!) to discuss the book and its author, whose work you obviously know quite well. You are quite right, the role of the 600-word book reviewer cannot be a synopsis – but rather a platform to evoke interest in the book, to briefly judge its merits, and situate it within the author’s corpus. Which you did. So, I was wrong on that count. I was also wrong to imply the review was negative. It was not. But more on that below.
I’m sorry this ends up being a two-for-one deal for you (two reviews for the pay of one), but such is the magic of dialogue that by responding to my specifics you’ve given a much better portrait of the book, its spirit and intent. Which will now be helpful to any enquirer who happens upon the page (even until now only you and I have been here.)
I also think your discussion of equivocation and criticism, and its place in Iyer’s voice, is excellent – and very important beyond this book, in the context of globalism and the excesses of fundamentalism. I concur that Iyer’s dialectical way of interpretation without rigidity “is a mature, sensible view of the world as it is today” – and models practical thinking skills for any who wishes to move in that direction.
It was not as an idolater or true believer that I responded (reacted?) to your review. I do think the last paragraph of the original is in poor taste for this reason. It appears that you are quoting hearsay in order to suggest personal hypocrisy in the author. That does not belong in a book review like this, and wastes valuable space that could have been better used. If that isn’t what you meant to communicate, I advise you read it over again. You claim the putative comment is “a telling remark” – but it is not at all clear to the reader what it tells. You seem to imply Iyer should be more careful in making light of Hinduism (“one’s own tradition”). Or perhaps you seem to be questioning the genuineness of Iyer’s public persona as skeptic, when (supposedly) he has addressed an audience on esoteric matters (whatever those are.) These are the vaguely “telling” implications the reader can only guess at. Thus, I believe the paragraph is a distraction to the review, and leaves an uneasy last impression. Which, I confess, got the better of me, leaving me to deal unfairly with the foregoing.
Yours sincerely,
GS (still hiding)