Quan Barry
Autor de We Ride Upon Sticks
Sobre El Autor
Quan Barry teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Créditos de la imagen: dvan.org
Obras de Quan Barry
Obras relacionadas
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Nombre legal
- Barry, Amy Quan
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1973
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- País (para mapa)
- USA
- Lugar de nacimiento
- Saigon, Vietnam
- Lugares de residencia
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Danvers, Massachusetts, USA - Educación
- University of Michigan (MFA)
- Ocupaciones
- professor (English)
poet
novelist - Organizaciones
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
Miembros
Reseñas
This book gives the Western reader a couple of rare things: a novel set in Mongolia and Buddhist monk characters who struggle with doubts and self-belief. Twins Chuluun and Mun, sent to join a monastery as children, have taken divergent paths as young adults. Chuluun is part of a mission to find the reincarnation of a lama in Tibetan Buddhism, which is also practiced in Mongolia. Mun has renounced his identity as a reincarnated leader himself and abandoned Buddhist teachings but is willing to assist his twin on this mission. From these two seemingly opposite poles the brothers move along the spectrum of belief and disbelief in a believable way through the story.
I've never seen the topic of identifying child reincarnations in Tibetan Buddhism treated in such a fully realized way; in Western reporting, where Tibetan Buddhism obviously has a pretty lofty spiritual reputation, it doesn't seem to get looked at from the perspective of the child himself (always a "he", though suggested here that evolution on gender roles could one day change that), asking what it means to be taken from a normal life into not just a monastic life but a complete identity - "you are this person, who did this and this and this in previous lives" - that the child doesn't get to choose for himself. In the West we're familiar with the idea of someone's childhood being taken from them due to things like super-competitive athletics (gymnasts, etc.) or bad family situations; here we see it as part of being identified as a reincarnated religious figure.
A great deal of research as well as some personal experience of Mongolia went into the writing, and the story shows it off as it travels from the vast interior grasslands to the northern ice to the western mountains to the southern desert, working in a non-Western perspective that portrays Genghis (Chinggis) Khan's distant rule in a far more benevolent light while condemning the more recent rule of Mongolia's communist puppet state that destroyed the monasteries and murdered their monks, part of the 5-10% of the population that died in the communist purges. It shows the current day rebirth of Mongolian Buddhism, its intertwined connection to Tibet, and the beliefs and practices of its adherents. Sometimes the information transmission gets in the way a bit of the storytelling, but it's such interesting stuff that I hardly minded.
In sum, a unique and memorable novel, from a skilled poet/novelist/playwright who has shown off quite an impressive literary range in her career thus far.… (más)
I've never seen the topic of identifying child reincarnations in Tibetan Buddhism treated in such a fully realized way; in Western reporting, where Tibetan Buddhism obviously has a pretty lofty spiritual reputation, it doesn't seem to get looked at from the perspective of the child himself (always a "he", though suggested here that evolution on gender roles could one day change that), asking what it means to be taken from a normal life into not just a monastic life but a complete identity - "you are this person, who did this and this and this in previous lives" - that the child doesn't get to choose for himself. In the West we're familiar with the idea of someone's childhood being taken from them due to things like super-competitive athletics (gymnasts, etc.) or bad family situations; here we see it as part of being identified as a reincarnated religious figure.
I enter my brother's chambers and find him sitting in his altar room among his booty. I'm not allowed to keep it, he says. All week gifts pour in. Stuffed animals, sports equipment, electronics, candy. It is all to be whisked away tomorrow and donated to the local school, places where children are allowed to be children.
And so my brother and I spend the night playing with objects we don't even know exist until now. One is a remote-control truck that has a siren on top that flashes red and blue lights, washing the walls with color. Tomorrow my brother is to don the gold brocade lama hat like a horse's mane. He is to be carried on an open-air litter through the crowds, the sangha of the whole country and beyond gathered... But tonight we are two little boys playing among a pile of treasures the world mysteriously brings into our lives.
A great deal of research as well as some personal experience of Mongolia went into the writing, and the story shows it off as it travels from the vast interior grasslands to the northern ice to the western mountains to the southern desert, working in a non-Western perspective that portrays Genghis (Chinggis) Khan's distant rule in a far more benevolent light while condemning the more recent rule of Mongolia's communist puppet state that destroyed the monasteries and murdered their monks, part of the 5-10% of the population that died in the communist purges. It shows the current day rebirth of Mongolian Buddhism, its intertwined connection to Tibet, and the beliefs and practices of its adherents. Sometimes the information transmission gets in the way a bit of the storytelling, but it's such interesting stuff that I hardly minded.
In sum, a unique and memorable novel, from a skilled poet/novelist/playwright who has shown off quite an impressive literary range in her career thus far.… (más)
Strange but fun book.
I graduated high school in 1988 and this takes place in 1989 so all of the cultural references speak directly to me in a super funny way. I’m not sure that would be true for people who aren’t my same age.
Magic, friendship, coming of age.
I graduated high school in 1988 and this takes place in 1989 so all of the cultural references speak directly to me in a super funny way. I’m not sure that would be true for people who aren’t my same age.
Magic, friendship, coming of age.
Funny, deep, dense, and a powerful time travel to 1989.
Listas
Feminism (1)
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 8
- También por
- 2
- Miembros
- 957
- Popularidad
- #26,917
- Valoración
- 3.9
- Reseñas
- 56
- ISBNs
- 24
- Idiomas
- 1
Nominally about a high school varsity field hockey team’s turnaround from chumps to champs, with a side of teenage dabbling in witchcraft and the Salem witch trials, it is really about a group of teenage girls coming into their own in the late eighties. Each girl (and one teenage boy) has her own unique family dynamics and expectations cocooning her, and if writing her name in a book of darkness (fronted by Emilio Estevez) and occasionally dancing naked in the woods together helps her to find and live her true self, what’s the harm. It all makes for a touching, humane, and very comic novel.… (más)