TWIB-III: 29

[akujunkan]

Aaand for the first time in three weeks, here's a TWIB for you (and on time, no less). I will be posting the outstanding ones eventually (along with the TPics) just as soon as my life calms down. In the meantime, please to be enjoying the one English-language book I read this week:

1) Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Times of Shunryu Suzuki - David Chadwick
Chadwick's Thank You and Okay! is one of my favorite books EVER, so I went into Crooked Cucumber with high expectations. How does it match up?

Well, it's not nearly as good as the former, but that's to be expected of a book whose subject the author knew personally and held in very high regard, but whose biography he had to reconstruct from scattered interviews conducted in multiple languages. Chadwick is obviously making an effort to be an objective and impartial biographer, but this reader at least couldn't help but feel that a biographer who didn't know Suzuki personally (to say nothing of having a student-teacher relationship with him) wouldn't have glossed over Suzuki's faults quite so frequently or glibly. That said, a more objective biographer might not have been able explain so eloquently why Suzuki was such a magnetic presence to those who knew him personally. To whit: lots of biographies end with the deaths of their subjects, but it's a rare one that has me tearing up over it.

While I don't know how much appeal this book might hold for anyone without an interest in (or prior knowledge of) the development of Soto Zen Buddhism in America, I definitely recommend it to potential readers who do.


That will be all.

Comments

[wombatdeamor.livejournal.com]

I'll probably wait until I see you next then, unless I stumble upon it for cheap (library or garage sale). I'll probably seek out his collected works for my To Read list though.

[akujunkan.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that Chadwick isn't an author people purchase casually, so I can't see anyone trying to get rid of his books at a library or garage sale. That said, more people need to read his stuff.

[wombatdeamor.livejournal.com]

very true. that's why I spent money I didn't have to get thank you and ok!, and I'm looking forward to your return so I can read more of him.

[akujunkan.livejournal.com]

Well, I still have a big box of stuff I'm gonna send to you any day now (eyeroll), so I'll just throw my copy in.

[wombatdeamor.livejournal.com]

our big pile of stuff for you is sitting in a pile growing bigger by the day. I don't trust shipping, since I used to throw boxes for a living. Once you've thrown a filing cabinet at a mexican, it's hard to trust that your valuables are being shipped by honest folk.