In a new novel, The Heart of the Buddha (coming in October 2009, Emerald Book Co, 231 pages, US$14.95), Canadian author Elsie Sze again offers profuse reading pleasures.
With her first book, Hui Gui, A Chinese Story (2005), the Hong Kong-born Sze, a former teacher and librarian living in Toronto, crafted one of the best English novels yet written about Hong Kong. Now, in her second novel, she gives similar treatment to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
A triple-treat, The Heart of the Buddha satisfies as a puzzling mystery, a heart-wrenching love story and a vivid travel guide to an exotic land.
“The plane made a quick stop… to pick up a few more passengers as well as cargo. I found myself sitting next to a hill of jute sacks for the remainder of the flight.”
Sze, an observant traveler often on the move, gladly shares many of the secular and religious flavors, pleasant and less so, of landlocked Bhutan and its neighbors, Tibet and India. She's an ideal tour guide.
“Long and narrow flimsy flags in white, red, green, yellow and blue fluttered on poles planted up on hillsides. ‘Prayer flags,’ said Sonam, pointing to them. ‘Mantras on them. When the wind blows, the prayers are heard.’
“On a concrete island in the middle of a street was a dead cow, with swarms of insects buzzing over it. People carried on their usual business and cars went around it.”
Readers experience the sights and sounds of Bhutan, of walking among its 700,000 people.
“He gave me a disarming smile, exposing teeth stained alarmingly blood-red… the result of betel-nut chewing, a Bhutanese addiction.”
As for the story, Marian, a fictional Toronto librarian, accepts a six-month job in Bhutan. Quickly, there's culture shock.
“We passed a farmhouse with a painting on its front white wall of what looked to me like a big fat red sausage, with a happy face, rolled-up eyeballs, a funny mustache curled up at the ends, and apparently wearing a rain hat. At its base were two round circles. A sausage on wheels dancing in the rain.
I asked Sonam if that was an auspicious symbol. He grinned.
‘That's phallus.’
‘A what?’
‘A phallus. To drive away evil. You see many wooden ones hanging from roofs.’ ”
Marian's interests stretch far beyond shelving books. She even risks forbidden love.
“He pointed.... ‘They are seeds from the Indian bean. The centre of the seed looks like a heart.’ We walked up to a foot-long, dried, canoe-shaped seed pod leaning against a corner on a table. My monk guide scooped out a few of the seeds still clinging inside the pod, and offered them to me. ‘The heart of the Buddha,’ he said, looking at me.”
The demure librarian experiences mighty urges. “Suppressed thoughts of Lopen Pema crept back into my mind. His kind, intelligent eyes, appealing smile, the sincere and patient manner in which he talked to me on matters of faith. And I could not rid myself of the image of the tall brown athletic body under the trappings of a monk's robe.”
The plot thickens with a risky mission to retrieve sacred Buddhist texts from Tibet: “They are of vital significance to the teaching of the sutra, and consequently of paramount value to our faith.”
Suddenly, Marian vanishes, and her twin sister Ruthie, a hospital administrator, sets out to find her. “Looking for Marian in Bhutan was like looking for one special pebble on an unfamiliar beach.”
The characters' emotions prove so strong, their sensations so vivid, that readers share them: “Our eyes locked for a good 10 seconds, as his hands gradually slowed down their movement, until they rested gently on my calf. It was a moment when massage turned to touch, and the contact of skin carried with it emotional repercussions.”
Clashing cultures, religions and lifestyles lead to a bittersweet blend of triumph and tragedy. The author tells a serious story, and some critics may grumble about too little humor. True, there's no slapstick, but Sze sneaks in amusing moments.
“My greatest challenge was avoiding the piles of dried horse manure that had been left along the trail by pack horses from the previous trek season. Karma made no attempt to go around them, calling them biodegradable matter healthy for the earth. ‘At least there are no fresh ones. We are the first trekkers this season,’ he said, amused by my ballerina leaps over the horse dung.”
The Heart of the Buddha is engaging and exotic, sensual and scintillating. Much of the prose exhilarates, like a new day with immense possibilities in an unfamiliar, fascinating place. “Daylight flooded in.... I inhaled the crisp mountain air, the fresh smell of newly turned earth mixed with animal manure. The sky was clear and blue. Another bright and glorious day outside.”
The urge to keep reading -- to see, hear, smell, touch and taste everything in The Heart of the Buddha -- seems overpowering.
Approval rating: 85 per cent.
For more information: www.elsiesze.com
(September 13, 2009)
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