Customer Reviews

The Laughing Sutra

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Over Christmas break I made a return trip to China and brought with me a copy of Mark Salzman's Laughing Sutra.

Salzman's Iron and Silk, though a bit dated, is one of the best books on visiting China. It is a wonderful read, a great teaching tool, and just simply a great book.

I had tried reading the Laughing Sutra a number of times and never got past the first chapter. However, during a 5 hour train ride between Beijing and Chengde China I gave the book another shot.

The first chapter is tough, but once you get past it this book is wonderful. It is funny, intelligent, clever, and a great history of China.

Salzman in brilliant fashion tells the story of Journey to the West, the Monkey King, Three Kingdoms, and the cultural revolution. This book is so creative and so brilliant.

Once past the first chapter I read the book in two days. It was an awesome literary experience.

My one warning is that you have to know a decent amount about China and Chinese history and literature to get the full effect of this book. Anyone who enjoys reading about China will eat this book up.

I cannot say enough goods things about this book.

READ IT!

I loved this book. As I was reading it, I kept exclaiming to my family about how wonderful it was, and when I finished it I repeatedly told them that somebody ought to read it. My teenage daughter took my advice yesterday, and she polished it off that same day to her delight. She said that she was sad to have finished it. The story starts off a little slowly, setting the scene. The early chapters have resonance and insight, but they don't really hint at the hilarious adventures to come. Hsun-ching is a charming character, quiet and intelligent, but you are likely to be completely enthralled by Colonel Sun. Once this pair is on their way to America in search of the Laughing Sutra you will have a hard time putting the book down until you are done. I have read a couple of Mark Salzman's other books, and each is extremely well written, displaying a fascination with character, a core of spirituality, and moving, insightful situations; I plan to work my way through his other books, because it's been a while since I've found a writer I enjoyed so much. But for sheer fun, compelling characters and emotional involvement, you couldn't do better than The Laughing Sutra.

This is a fable about the misadventures of a boy who is orphaned and then raised by a monk. To grant the monk/surrogate father's dying wish... which revolves around obtaining the Laughing Sutra... the boy Hsun-ching sets off on a journey with a companion, the mysterious Colonel Sun.

In addition to dealing with Chinese officials and American police officers, Hsun-ching must also deal with whether or not his traveling companion Colonel Sun is just an incredibly crazy loon, or (could it be?) actually *the* heroic "Monkey King" of ancient legend.

The book shares a little Chinese history, folklore and humor, and it is a magical and entertaining novel. After the first dozen or so pages that set up the background, it is fast-paced and suitable for a day or two of leisure reading. There is a dash of irreverence, but those who would be offended probably have already turned away simply because of the title.

This story is fictional, but if you think you can find a quick path to enlightenment, reading The Laughing Sutra will put things in better perspective. :)

I'm a 15 year old sophmore at a private school in Texas. I was required to read this book for a summer reading project. Normally the summer reading books are boring books that no student has intrest in. The Laughing Sutra, on the other hand, is a GREAT book. It has romance, adventure, suspense, and comedy all packed in to a wonderful story. I even laughed out loud at this book. I would recomend this book for anyone willing to have a fun, peaceful time. Another good characteristic of this book is that it reads quickly and is never thought of as a long boring book while reading. I hope others enjoy this book as much as I did

I have read this book twice, once in high school and another just recently. This novel is a similar story to "Journey to the West," talking about a monk who goes on a pilgrimage with his disciples to find the teachings of Buddha, only that this novel takes place in slightly modern times. Salzman has creatively re-invented the story with much enthusiasm and humor.

I have recommended this book to many of my friends and all of them have enjoyed reading it. For younger readers, I think they should read it a second time later on in their lives to get a better understanding of the book. (I understood it better after my second reading.)

To conclude this, Salzman is a wonderful and talented writer. I have just recently purchased more of his books and can't wait till I dive into those stories!

This is an enjoyable modernization of the classic Chinese fable of "The Journey to the West." In this case, "the West" is the United States. Salzman does an excellent job of seamlessly introducing his U.S. readers to the essence of the fable, and its hero the Monkey King. He then lays the rest of his story over that framework. All in all, it is delightfully written. The characters are well-formed and the descriptive language is fresh and insightful. My only complaints are that occasionally it seems the story goes off track to make a joke about a cultural disparity and there are some continuity gaps that are probably the result of editing.

The Laughing Sutra, although fiction, is the perfect counterpoint to Iron & Silk. Salzman is the main figure in Iron & Silk, showing the cultural differences between the American and Chinese through his viewpoint. In The Laughing Sutra, he is able to turn the tables and present these differences from the viewpoints of a modern Chinese and an ancient Chinese (Salzman's language speciality was classical Chinese, which is to modern Mandarin what Latin is to Italian). The story line may be a quest, but it is a quest under a different sort of rules than American fantasy. Here, the quest is one of duty, one of loyalty. Here, the heroes are brave yet unsure, truly innocents abroad. The immortal Monkey King is the only 'fantastic' thing about the book, but the viewpoints are so much more different than our own that the entire world seems strange, even when they reach San Francisco.

I once recommended Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides and A.A. Attanasio's Wyvern for being two sides of the same coin. In these novels of piracy on the Carribbean, Powers had taken real history and grafted on fantasy elements, while Attanasio had taken fantasy and made it seem real. And so are Barry Hughart and Mark Salzman fellows of a coin too. Hughart takes folklore that is alien to us and explains it to us in terms we can understand, while Salzman (in The Laughing Sutra) has taken a portion of reality, and used it to make our world seem alien.

In science fiction, we make much ado about our aliens, but I think Salzman knows the real story: we are our own best aliens.

The Laughing Sutra is a story twice told. Early in Mark Salzman's vastly entertaining novel Hsun-sing is taught to read through the story of the Monkey Kind, an old Chinese mythical fable. Hsun-sing then relives the fable in his own life when he teams up with a modern day version of the Monkey King and sets off to America to find and return to his mentor the long lost Laughing Sutra.

This is a complex book in that it has many levels. It is, obviously, pertly mythology. It also is partly an historical novel, gently revealing the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. It is part travelogue, detailing Hsun-sing and Col Sun's journey to America. It is an adventure story tole with vim and vigour. And, lastly, it is a social farce, telling the tale of clashing cultures between the Chinese and American world views.

That Salzman is able to pull this off with none of the parts overwhelming the other and while maintaining the narrative flow is quite an accomplishment. This is writing of a high order.

In the end, the vast contradictions that are Chine shine through, as does the reality thet lurks behind all myths.

A truly entertaing and enlightening book

I am not an avid reader of books. I often put a book away before even getting to the crux of the story. The Laughing Sutra had me enthralled and mesmorised from beginning to end. I felt a sense of loss when I had finished my `travels' with Hsun-Ching and Colonel Sung, and found it difficult to accept the fact that I have come to the end of their story.

I want to know what Colonel Sung, who is my hero in the story, will be doing next. I can easily say that Mark Salzman is my current favourite author and I am looking out for more of his writings.

It is amazing to become this involved with the characters in the book I am reading. From the very begining of this book I felt like I was standing right there, and then effortlessly I was carried through the cultural revolution, into Hong Kong, and then on to America. The tale of this boy and his companion was woven with humour and compasion for all people and all of their strange and wonderful ways. A wonderful book!!!