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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
No Quite Enlightenment Hen, but nae bad either, 20 May 2003
As a Buddhist living in Scotland I was keen to read this story to see what representation the author gave the philosophy and it's Scottish, Nae, Glaswegian, edge. And like another reviewer I couldn't put the book down, until it reached what I felt was a weaker middle act than the gentle humour of the preceeding one. The book really draws you in but I felt the path she lead me down was bogged down far too heavily in the life of one of the three characters in the book (written as alternating points of view from Father, Mother and Daughter). It's the mother that you learn the most from, but like a lot of readers I felt a little cheated that she didn't give more attention as to what was happening in terms of the Painter and Decorator Father's unusual choice of becoming a Buddhist. Maybe I am biased, but I think that his story stops just as it was getting interesting. I felt that Donovan gives a neutral view of the practice of Buddhism - even with what may based on the (very) Tibetan group Samye Dzong - and I felt that some of her observations were quite carefully researched and gently put forward. But when she writes outwith of the Glaswegian vernacular I find her characters to be a little thin - especially the characters on the retreat near the beginning of the book. They just seem to exist so that the central three characters have got something to bounce off on. I find the same is true of Irvine Welsh when he writes outwith his "Ebmra-speak." The other voices seem a tad two dimensional. The daughter's voice is very well developed (with one or two minor niggles - would a twelve year old really say "How's the Yogic Flying going Dad ?") but reading the daughter's inner dialogue was a delight in the main. If I was being extreme I would say "what does the book offer when removed from it's slang ?" and to be quite honest, and I hate to say this, when I had finished it I felt that it virtually veered into romantic fiction territory with the relationship of Father and Mother. Is this a bad thing ? Not really, but I felt like she ditched a lot of her interesting trains of thought she set up at the start. I did enjoy the romantic, unspoken subtext though and it was a sweet part of the story. Donovan seems happiest writing from Liz's (the mother's) point of view - maybe she empathises more with her struggle. And Buddha Da comes across as a more (and I am struggling to find the best word here) gently feminine piece of work in the end. No bad thing either. But I had a niggle at the back of my mind that I was a little disappointed and can't quite put my finger on why. It has the kind of feel-good factor of say, The movie "The Committments" - seemingly regular inner city lives transformed by something aspirational - but it never quite hits a peak although it gets close. Donovan seems to work best when working purely observationally on the voice, because she's got "The Patter" down to a fine art here. And she's got a lot of humour but she loses it a little along the way as if it was written in two very different times. Maybe I am being hard on her. I probably am, because Buddha Da was a brilliant read, I read it in three sittings. It is such a pleasurable book and it's heart is definitely in the right place. You could say it is a compassionate book and I read it laughing out loud a few times. It's warm and I'm over-critical.
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