[books 2013] Nine Lives
Mar. 9th, 2013 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro11. Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple
Dalrymple started out writing travel books and then branched into writing popular yet academic-quality histories of India. This book is closer to the former, in that he travels throughout India to look at its various religious traditions, but the individual people he chooses to chronicle are very much let to tell their stories in their own words without passing judgment (but he does ask them hard-hitting questions), and Dalrymple provides the background.
He captures the sheer variety of Indian religious tradition - Jains, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus and mixtures thereof; in northern India Hindus worship at Sufi shrines. Hinduism itself has a multitude of facets, the most exotic of those (to Western minds) explored here.
I struggled with the first two chapters - not only were the lives chronicled difficult, something about the writing just didn't click, but the last seven were always fascinating even where the events described were unhappy or disturbing.
India is always fascinating in all its complexity; this is definitely recommended reading.
February reading
Which takes us to the end of February. I read four whole books. A new low. Aside from being ill for the first two weeks of the month, work has eaten my life so that lunch hours are few and far between, and I was generally unable to concentrate. Also, when I'm not well I have an even shorter attention span than usual and start lots of books so that the in-progress pile got completely out of hand. Expect better in March.
Dalrymple started out writing travel books and then branched into writing popular yet academic-quality histories of India. This book is closer to the former, in that he travels throughout India to look at its various religious traditions, but the individual people he chooses to chronicle are very much let to tell their stories in their own words without passing judgment (but he does ask them hard-hitting questions), and Dalrymple provides the background.
He captures the sheer variety of Indian religious tradition - Jains, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus and mixtures thereof; in northern India Hindus worship at Sufi shrines. Hinduism itself has a multitude of facets, the most exotic of those (to Western minds) explored here.
I struggled with the first two chapters - not only were the lives chronicled difficult, something about the writing just didn't click, but the last seven were always fascinating even where the events described were unhappy or disturbing.
India is always fascinating in all its complexity; this is definitely recommended reading.
February reading
Which takes us to the end of February. I read four whole books. A new low. Aside from being ill for the first two weeks of the month, work has eaten my life so that lunch hours are few and far between, and I was generally unable to concentrate. Also, when I'm not well I have an even shorter attention span than usual and start lots of books so that the in-progress pile got completely out of hand. Expect better in March.
