Customer Reviews

Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When you buy this book, make sure you have a free evening or weekend in front of you. Once started you cannot stop. The book demonstrates how the world is shrinking. Who would have imagined that a Tibetan would be able to write, perfectly, a book in the style of Conan Doyle. It is so realistic that I started to wonder if it was indeed a late discovered manuscript. Even though nothing is sacrificed for the excitement of the story the books imparts useful and interesting information about Buddhism, Shambala, the Dalai Lama, Tibet and its occupation by China. The story is an excellent script for a movie. It will rival the James Bond movies for excitement but with a serious twist.

This is quite a different take on Holmes. The writing style, the atmosphere, the characters and the scenery are very good, and some parts of the plot have been cunningly devised to provide better explanations for post-Richenbach Sherlockiana.
I understand why some people did not like this book, despite the excellent writing; the end of the book weaves Holmes' rationality with the occult and the mystical. Reading this book was a special experience for me; it does add a layer to Holmes' already complex nature, which may be challenging to reconcile with the image we know so well from Conan-Doyle's works. But if you're open enough to absorb different takes on our hero, you'll enjoy this immensely, as have I.

Most people who know a little about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series know that at one point Doyle got sick of the detective series and killed off his star character, only to be forced into "resurrecting" him after a two year absence. Here, in one of the many, many, many, modern takes on the Holmes series, eminent Tibetan author Norbu details Holmes adventures incognito in India and Tibet during those two years. The role of Dr. Watson (both as bumbling sidekick and chronicler) is here assumed by Hurree Chandar Mookerjee, a Bengali spy lifted from yet another work of fiction, Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" (and just to be totally clear, he was based on a real Indian who spied for the British!). The adventures initially consist of a plot by the henchmen of Holmes' now-dead nemesis, Moriarity, to avenge their leader's death. Holmes ends up hiding out and getting the notion to make a pilgrimage to Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama-something strictly forbidden for Westerners. This leads to the second main adventure, which involves helping the young 13th Dalai Lama (a man critical to real-life modern Tibetan history) evade the deadly machinations of the powerful Manchu Imperial agents in Lhasa.

Norbu should first and foremost be commended for being able to almost perfectly capture the correct period speech for each character (there is a lengthy glossary at the back for all the Hinustani phrases and period slang). I say" almost" because I found Hurree's speech to be just a little too over the top, even for the type of educated servant of the Empire he is-it's just a shade too forced at times. Norbu has also captured the period perfectly and manages to seamlessly insert his own agenda by portraying early Chinese imperialism in Tibet. The portrayal of Holmes is excellent (enthusiastic, abrasive, arrogant, drug abuser) up to a point. That point is the final quarter of the book which starts melding the Holmesian world of deduction and reason with the Tibetan world of mysticism and occult powers. Up until then, I had been having great fun, but once people started throwing around hellfire and erecting mental shields and whatnot, I lost faith and interest in the whole exercise. It's not that I'm prejudiced against such things (I've played sword and sorcery role-playing games for 15 years), I just don't think they belong in the hyper-deductive world of Sherlock Holmes. It's well known that Conan Doyle had a strong belief in the occult and was fascinated with the spirit world, but to mix that in with Holmes just rubs me wrong.

So long as you don't allow yourself to be tricked into buying the same book twice (yes, Virginia, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years is the same book!!) you are in for a treat. This author captures Holmes as Holmes would have been--still the world's greatest detective. Disguise, aliases, locations, all these meant nothing to the man behind the magnifying glass. The Fu Manchu like attack with the leech in the lamp--brilliant! I can't say enough good things about this book except Jamyang Norbu, don't make it your last! Definately five Sherlock stars! Quoth the Raven...

Sure this is pastiche But it is crafted with care. The author shows great care in trying to give a good 19th century feel to his story. The fact that he brings Tibetan philosophy into his plot line should not be that much of a shock. I grew up on Sax Rohmer[Arthur Henry Ward], T. Lobsang Rampa[Cyril Hoskins], & Joan Grant "far memory" books. I love the Doyle canon but even Doyle was fallible. I enjoyed this book very much, in fact I hope the author writes another. FYI there is a glossary at the back of the book.

I must agree with many of the other reviewers. This book started with traditional Sherlock Holmes --- mystery, clues and the explanation of these clues and how he solves the little mysteries at the beginning. Norbu is even able to resurrect the essence of the original Sherlock Holmes. It was almost as if I were reading the original Sherlock. But alas, Sherlock meets the Dahli Lama (or almost to be Dahli Lama) and the reader is sent into the realms of the occult and science fiction. Gone are the the wonderful clues and Sherlock's ability to takes these clues and solve a mystery. Lots of fun and excellent writing, but disappointing when one is looking for a great Holmes mystery. It is obvious from the superb writing that Norbu is capable of writing a good mystery but he fails at the end.

Despite the shallow reviews you may have read, this is an excellent book, not only for Holmes fans but for people interested in colonialism and Tibet's struggle against China and India's struggle for freedom for England. Yes, this book is more about the issues of Tibet's struggle to find its way through the minefields of British and Chinese imperialism than it is about ratiocination. The narrator alone is worth the money and time, and with some magical realism thrown in for a truly Tibetan reading experience, this amounts to a book many will find very interesting. Not everyone, obviously, but perhaps you? I loved it!

In my opinion Jamyang Norbu has written a wonderful story on Sherlock Holmes' missing years. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes was for me a great adventure. From the descriptions of India and Tibet to the Ice Temples, Norbu captivates the readers interest in the mystery and magic of writing. He is truly a literary master and this book deserves an award! Thank-you Jamyang Norbu!

This book is worth buying for anyone who is an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes which certainly applies to me. It seems to me that Jamyang Norbu can describe Sherlock better that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did himself. If you read this book, your view of Sherlock Holmes won't be the same again. Dr. John Watson has been replaced by Huree Chunder Mookherjee, a bengali spy, who is far more humorous than Watson. The character of Holmes remains the same, mysterious and intelligent. The book is filled with witty humour. The plot of the book revolves around Sherlock Holmes's stay in India and Tibet. To find out more about this book, read it and i'm sure you will not be disappointed.

Having been a devoted Holmes fan since the age of five, I have read a great many purported "further adventures" of Holmes based on "forgotten manuscripts". More often than not, such books are little more than cheap and shallow attempts to capitalise on the marketability of Holmes character.

Jamyang Norbu has avoided such a fate by writing a truly excellent book, for the most part. His portrayal of Holmes is spot on, and he evokes the atmospheres of both India and Thibet tremendously well.

As has been pointed out by other reviewers, the point at which the book stumbles (and which prevents me giving it 5 stars) is the last quarter of the book, where, unfortunately, Norbu's plot twists revert to an overly melodramatic, borderline comical clicheness. By the end of the book, I was halfway expecting the narrator to announce that he was the long lost love child of Holmes and Irene Adler!

Having said all this, the book is an admirable piece of work, well deserving of the awards it has received. It also does its part in raising awareness about the absolutely deplorable treatment of Thibetans by the Chinese government, both currently and historically. As a graduate student of both history and political science, I find it amazing not only that the West allows such abuse to go on with so little coverage - let alone intervention - but that the Chinese government can still maintain a straight face whilst criticising the West for interfering in other nations' development and affairs.