Customer Reviews

Buddha Da

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Its seldom that a book comes into my world that is different in almost every conceivable way from anything you have read before. Buddha Da maybe be one of the most unique works of fiction that I have ever worked my way through.

Basically the book is a mere snippet in the lives of a Scottish Family. The father becomes immersed in Buddhism and changes to the extent where his marriage breaks down. Not the happiest outcome in the world but the storyline is not the strength of this book. The entire thing is written in a series of monlogues, each character expressing how they are feeling about things and discussing the latest events. Rather than Donovan trying to explain to you how her creations are feeling she allows them to do it directly to you - amost as if they are each working on personal diaries and you are diary they are writing on. This angle allows you to get really quite deeply into the characters and makes you feel like much more of a fly on the wall than is typical.

The barrier to many Americans reading this book however is going to be the language the monologues are in. They are written 'with accent' and much of it is phonetic.

"At the coffee break the wumman came ower and sat beside me. She wis tall wi her hair cut dead short and she'd these big dangly earings jinglin fae her lugs. It wis hard tae work oot whit age she wis; could have been anythin far thirty-five tae forty-five. She wis dressed in black wi a flowery-patterned shawl thing flung ower her shooders."

What folk need to understand is that familiarity to a Glaswegian accent is something that is common to almost all people in the world and is as foreign to an Englishman living in London as it is to a resident of San Deigo. A little effort is required to read the first few chapers but after a while you forget about the lack of real words and instead literally hear your characters - Donovan by forcing you to acknowledge the accent brings her characters to life.

Its a good enough book to give it a shot at any rate. Is this a rave review? Nope. Frankly I thought that Anne Donovan did a fine job with the adults in the book but the character of the daughter was something unreal. It was like Donovan has been an adult to long to set herself inside the mind of a child and I thought the character and the things she achieves are just a little boring and lifeless. Fortunatly she isnt in the book often enough to spoil it completely however I'm not sure she really needed to be in there at all - a couple of years older and she may have been a more interesting subject to deal with but alas ...

OK. First of all, understand that this book is written entirely in phoenetically spelled Glaswegian dialect. And for the first few chapters, it can stand in the way. And then you get the rhythm. And then it doesn't matter. And you have achieved what the quirky main character in this book, a Glasgow house painter named Jimmy, is trying so hard to achieve--simplicity and clarity.

The charming and very quirky story revolves around a working-class family in Glasgow, Scotland. The dad (or "da," as they say), Jimmy, owns the house-painting business with his brother John. His wife, Liz, his sweetheart since she was 14, is a secretary. Their only daughter, Anne-Marie, is herself 14, and simply loveable--the most centered character in the book.

Sensing some sort of inner turmoil, Jimmy is drawn to the local Buddhist center (we are talking about a working class beer drinking simple soul whose previous idea of humor was to moon for the video camera) and finds a sense of self he never had before. As he earnestly seeks to immerse himself in this new way of being, he becomes increasingly neglectful of his family--up to and including declaring to Liz that he must be celibate from now on! The story is told first person from alternating points of view, and the reader is sympathetic to all of them (at least I was).

The disarming simplicity of the tale, and the work it takes to overcome the dialect, mirrors Jimmy's immersion into Buddhism, and is simply brilliant. This is a completely different kind of book, and well worth reading. I loved it and recommend it with the caveat that it is a book that takes some work.

At first, I was afraid of the Scottish dialect in which this is written, but after three pages it failed to register any longer except as how these characters talked and thought. Don't miss this book because of the dialect -- I almost did and I would have greatly regretted it.

Buddha Da weaves together the story of three members of a family -- Da, Ma, and Anne Marie, their daughter -- and does it seamlessly into a story of fallout, faith, hunger, and redemption. It is just about a flawless book, flawlessly told. I don't know the last time I found a book as dramatically pleasing and logically coherent and consistent as Buddha Da. It is a masterpiece I will recommend to everyone interested in Buddhism, family life, or just good fiction. I look forward to the author's next book.

I read this book while in Scotland. I have a good friend from Glasgow and I felt as though she was reading the book outloud to me. It is written in the accent of Glasgow and takes a page or two to get used to the writing - but adds charm to the book. Buddha Da is a wonderful novel that touches a subject at the heart of family life, as one member of the family develops a spiritual direction unfamiliar to the others. The question of whether to support this individual's quest or try to pull him back into the family is what a daughter and wife grapple with. A wonderful read - I recommend it!

I like this novel so much that I'm going to use it as a set book in a college class. It's original, touching and funny--full of the compassion and insight that its main character, Jimmy, seeks. After a few paragraphs I settled into the Glaswegian dialect easily. It's hard for a teacher to find a well written novel that isn't depressing. This is the only one on my short list (Brian Moore's Feast of Lupercal and Keneally's Passenger were others, but Donovan gives the reader at least as much as either of these and is in print).

Three tellers narrate, in dialect (which flows fluidly even for foreigners after a few moments), what happens in their Glaswegian family after Jimmy McKenna starts attending a local Tibetan Buddhist center. He cannot explain it, but the comfort he feels overcomes his awkwardness and what began as a lark turns out to be a fascination with "this incredible feelin of peace come ower me, soft like. So ah just sat." But, this happened on New Year's of the new millennium: Jimmy'd gone to the temple to avoid the drinking that had led him at his birthday party to make a fool of himself on video, and his discontent with his immaturity and his marriage amidst his career making a living as a housepainter leads him to renounce first meat, then alcohol and, at least for now, sex with his wife.

Donovan sets this Scottish situation of domestic strife and inner searching up nimbly, and the tension moves this deservedly award-winning 2002 novel along swiftly. In a Barcelona Review 2003 interview, she explains how Liz responds to smells and senses; Jimmy to visuals, and Anne-Marie to sounds and hearing, and the chapters do sound similar among the three family members while keeping subtly distinctive tones, word patterns, and attitudes. The book moves quickly and fluidly as Donovan uses the novel of family relationships to explore the appeal of the exotic and the surprising as they enter each protagonist's experience. Jimmy's birthday party, Anne-Marie's concert, a New Year's celebration, and a funeral all set up dramatic showdowns that integrate the shifts in the dynamic, as Liz's power seems to grow as Jimmy steps aside, as the novel continues over a year or so full of challenges.

Liz feels she must deal with raising their daughter, who tells her own reactions to her parents' strife as she works on a tape to enter in a music contest, blending Tibetan chants with the "Salve Regina," and she finds herself soon living with a father who's does not stay at night at home, but in a sleeping bag at the temple. I felt her character needed more elaboration, and given Donovan was a long-time teacher, Anne-Marie's school settings appeared very underdrawn and dull, but that's a minor point in a very solid storyline. Maybe they reflect the girl's reaction towards school but she's meant to be a good student, so her seeming lack of attention to her environment and the comparatively little time devoted in the book to her studies puzzled me.

As Liz reminds him, Jimmy misses Anne-Marie's school concert "tae go and see this wonderful lama who's an enlightened being and is gonnae unlock all the secrets of the universe tae yous special people who sit on yer arses every night wi yer eyes closed while we unenlightened beins dae unimportant things like dae a washin or make a dinner or iron yer claes..."

Meanwhile, Liz finds her own escape. Her decisions create the uncertainty that she and Jimmy must deal with, if not solve, as the novel reaches its satisfying, open-ended conclusion. Liz watches in a doctor's office "the wee pulse of light, like a faraway star," and that symbolizes the possibilities that the author, in the voices of three convincingly related characters, creates to delve into the mysteries beneath the mundane working-class life in Glasgow that she, a native, invigorates with recognizable emotion and sympathetic compassion.

This is an engaging book about one man's interest in Buddhism and how it effects his family. Once you get used to the unique writing style (which takes about a chapter) you will fly through this book in no time. It is a poignant read and expertly crafted.

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