The Open Road

Starred review from January 14, 2008
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.

January 15, 2008
Iyer is one of the most praised travel writers working and a remarkably effective nonfiction writer and literary journalist, author of, among other titles, "Video Night in Kathmandu" and "The Lady and the Monk". His latest is an ambitious attempt to offer an innovative, multifaceted portrait of the Dalai Lama. Neither a work of history nor a biography, a work of Buddhist theology, or an apologia for Tibetan politics, Iyer's book is organized by the various faces the Dalai Lama seems to wear (e.g., "The Conundrum," "The Mystery," "The Monk," "The Politician"). Most readers, however, would have benefited from a clear, nonworshipful, more conventionally structured work: Iyer's result feels chaotic, since his structure prevents him from showing development and change of the world or the Dalai Lama over time. Despite Iyer's best intentions, it leaves the impression of a scattering of postcards about Iyer's friendship with this important leader rather than a searching study of the leader himself. Nevertheless, the popularity of the Dalai Lama recommends this for most collections, especially where Iyer's books have a following. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 12/07.]

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2008
A mindful world wanderer and renowned travel writer, Iyer has a 30-year connection to the Dalai Lama stemming from a meeting between Iyers 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 ofthe highly charged atmosphere of Dharamsala, the capital of Tibet-in-exile;surreal aspects of the Dalai Lamas ecstatic reception at his numerous appearances; andthe profoundly mysterious elements of the Dalai Lamas private and almost unimaginable Tibetan world, the realm of oracles and reincarnation. In the books 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 Iyers exacting observations, incisive analysis, and frank respect for the unknowable results in a uniquely internalized, even empathic portrait of one of the worlds most embraced and least understood guiding lights.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)