Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Bantam Books (Transworld UK)
Release Date: 5 July 2004
ISBN: 0553815350
Awards:
Format Reviewed: Paperback
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Genre: Fiction/Spiritual
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Rachel A Hyde
Reviewer Notes: Contemporary India
Copyright MyShelf.com

Climbing Chamundi Hill
By Ariel Glucklich


     Usually when I select a novel I am looking for light entertainment, but sometimes it is good to choose the opposite and I chose a book that made me think. This is a story inside a story, or a set of tales inside a frame; ostensibly it tells of a modern, very worldly American recuperating in Mysore. He isn’t intending to make the pilgrimage of climbing Chamundi Hill barefoot, just taking off his shoes because they have got wet but he gets into the company of a local man and ends up doing just that. While the two of them progress slowly up the hill to the temple of Shiva, the old guide tells the young tourist many traditional tales and the pair talk of what they mean. At first the young man does not get any of this at all, and thinks that it is not for him; he doesn’t even approve of a lot of the ideas in the stories. But as they climb higher, even this secular man is forced to re-examine the way he thinks, and the life he leads.

     This isn’t a quick read and certainly not a book you only read once; you might even choose not to read it all in one go in the manner of a novel. But it will make you think - it’s clever that way - about your own experiences, and the nature of many spiritual and earthly things including India. This isn’t necessarily about religion (or at least not just about it) but Eastern philosophy and the meaning of one’s life. If an unspiritual person like me can enjoy this sort of book and spend some time poring over it and rereading bits then it must be something special and it is. The retellings of the traditional stories seem to appeal to something very basic, and tell of essential truths and ways of seeing in few words, making them ideal for taking apart and examining. The device of having a regular guy telling the story in his own words and debating with somebody who is his opposite in many ways is an effective device. I could imagine other ways the book could have been written, but this is probably the most accessible. Have a go with it and see what happens. It isn’t a coffee table book (too small for one thing) but leave it there anyway…