Customer Reviews

The Skull Mantra

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Skull Mantra" offers an interesting look at the shamanic origins of Tibetan Buddhism. If one is open to a departure from what we believe Buddhism is, to how it may actually operate in the Tibetan society, this book shows how otherwise learned men in the spiritual sense, can operate in worlds that allow for a physical manifestation of spirit demons in the modern world. While the book kept my interest, it was not an easy read. Many Chinese and Tibetan terms had to be integrated with a very elaborate plot. The author does not make things easy for the reader. When the protagonist has an insight into what might be happening, the author only informs the reader after a number of pages and other plot manipulations. I did love, however, the ease with which the Tibetan characters could view events on many planes and levels without any of the contradictions that a Westerner may have had. The two American characters seemed superficial and simplistic compared to the workmanlike attitude of the various Asian characters. People accepted their positions matter-of-factly, concentrating their energies on a more spiritual practice that most Americans would find incomprehensible. The cultural attitudes dealing with death in a country where it is difficult to simply bury the dead (the earth is, after all, often frozen and rocky ) are particularly foreign to the Westerner., much like Joel's reaction to the process in Northern Exposure! Interesting setting, fascinating culture, and unfortunately one that may be doomed to death by the destruction of not only the spirit but the land as well! If you like Tony Hillerman or stan Jones, you'll like this if you keep with it!

When I started to read The Skull Mantra, I was not happy with the author's apparent lack of understanding of Tibetan Buddhism, which I practice. Just having Buddhists refer to their "soul" and having them kneel to pray made me cringe, and I hated to see Tibetan Buddhist practice reduced to reciting mantras. But after finishing the book in record time (the plot left me no other choice), I wonder whether the technical errors reflect ignorance so much as an attempt to allow uninitiated readers to relate to the feelings of the characters. Where it really counts, the book faithfully represents the deeper currents of Tibetan Buddhist thought. This is especially true in the conclusion, which starkly presents the way in which different cultural backgrounds find resolutions for the same problem (I'm trying not to give too much away here!). Yes, the foreign words and concepts make the book hard to read for those who are completely unfamiliar with the background. But if you want to read a great mystery that also introduces you to a culture worth knowing and an international conflict worth knowing about, this is it.

This is an engrossing story, and the author does a splendid job of bringing the setting alive. His picture of Tibet under the Chinese administration is painful to read but unfortunately accurate, and, to his great credit, he avoids the temptation to depict all Chinese officials as Bad Guys; the occupation of Tibet is shown to be painful for the more conscientious Chinese too. I found that the characters were a mixed bag: Shan and his Chinese and Tibetan partners-in-investigation were fully rounded and believable, but some of the other characters (especially the two Americans) were one-dimensional. The novel was rough going at times, too: there are long stretches where what you're reading is fascinating, but it's hard to see the relevance of it to the investigation; and although the author offers a neat resolution of the mystery at the end, some of the other possible explanations he raised were never satisfactorily resolved. As for the criticism that the novel's depiction of Tibetan Buddhism is full of errors, I'm not an expert on the subject, although I do volunteer work for a Tibetan refugee relief organization and hang around with a lot of Tibetans. But I know that it's erroneous to view Tibetan Buddhism as a monolithic whole: there are various schools of thought and monastic traditions, and the indigenous Bon religion, which preceded Buddhism, is shamanistic and magical. Westerners are usually initiated into the monastic side of Tibetan Buddhism, but the magic often looms larger in ordinary people's lives, and I think the author did a good job of showing that. All in all, the novel is rewarding, but it's not the light escapist reading that one often expects from mysteries.

Like the Himalayan mountains that tower over the Tibetan valleys of "The Skull Mantra", this novel is miles above the rest of the crime fiction that crowd bookstores. Pattison's tale of the struggles of a group of Tibetan monks imprisoned in a communist Chinese labor camp is filled with wisdom, compassion and a moral order that is so often lacking in contemporary crime ficiton. There is so much that is fascinating in this novel: the convoluted, and ironically highly bureaucratic, politics of communist China; the dichotomy of a superstitious ancient Tibetan religion that coexists with the simplicity of a more modern Buddhism; the inner turmoil that many of the characters struggle with as they attempt to reconcile where their allegiance lies - with Tibet or China? So many American writers feel that to achieve a grittier sense of "reality" that their books need to spill blood by the gallon and that the characters need to be soulless decandent wastrels. Pattison gives us characters who want forgiveness for their violence and actually exhibit shame. But, I guess this may be in part due to the Asian culture that Pattison so excellently captures on the page. American culture is so unwilling to embrace shame, remorse and forgivenesss and I rarely find it in the mystery novels that are published these days.

When I read the Booklist review a couple months ago, I knew this had the potential to be one of the more interesting books to be published this Summer. This book does for Buddhism and Tibetan culture what Tony Hillerman's books have done for Navajo and Hopi culture and mythology. I learned a tremendous amount while being intrigued and entertained. The plot is believable, the characters are quite real and the ending not easily determined in advance. Make no mistake, this isn't an easy read and you need to concentrate quite a lot at times to comprehend which characters are which, but it's well worth slogging through those points. Low violence, low profanity, very low sex and a cast of characters you really get involved with sums up this book. I don't know how Mr. Pattison could pull off a sequel, but he should definitely write more fiction.

Don't be put off by descriptions of the book's setting - prison camp, torture, etc. It's not a grim polemic against Chinese repression in Tibet. It is a wonderfully written story which you won't be able to put down once you get past the first chapter.

As a reading fanatic, I comb Amazon for books that I haven't already read. Somehow, this one got past me; shame on me!! Before reading this book, I would have said that THE EIGHT was my favorite book, and Lois Bujold MacMasters my favorite author. While both are still up there, Eliot Pattison, and ALL FOUR OF HIS BOOKS staring the Chinese Inspector/Detective Shan Tao Yun are, by far, the best books I have ever read.

Now, I usually start a book, read the first few chapters, then "speed read" the rest of the book. Not with these books. Each word; each picture so eloquently painted by Mr. Pattison's writing is a treat. You find yourself in Tibet; learning about the peoples, their history and their centuries, milenia of struggles.

The mystery in each book is solid, and you are with Shan each step of the confusing way. The quiet dignity of the myriad of characters enduring this harsh yet beautiful landscape, and their individual stories are a treat for the soul. The villans are true villans, and would be considered so under any type of government.

Thank you, Mr. Pattison for sharing your insights with us through these wonderful books. Once you pick up and read The Skull Mantra, you will trip over your own feet to get the next three books in the series.

When a headless corpse is uncovered by a prison work gang on a windy Tibetan mountain, veteran Beijing police inspector Shan Tao Yin would seem the perfect man to solve the crime - except Shan himself has been a prisoner there for years. More at ease with his fellow Tibetan inmate monks than with the Chinese officials who run the work camp.

Eliot Pattison has taken us into the highest reaches of this world, into the rarified realm of petty, absolute bean-counter tyrants with pasts to hide & greed to satisfy. Mixed in with centuries-old rituals & stories, are modern day mischief & manipulations. Hidden tunnels & monasteries; helicopters & Chinese armed forces; faxes & demons & a lot about the influence of Communism as practiced by Chinese bureaucrats & Buddhism as practiced by Tibetan adepts. The more things change the more they stay the same! Amazing!

The story of how both Westerners & Chinese have incised the mystical, magical & spiritual from the Land of Snows is a sorry one. Crass shenanigans to placate tourists & callow genocide to rid the land of its holy men.

In the end The Skull Mantra is only a murder mystery, a mere novel yet it aroused my wonder, raised the hairs on the nape of my neck & deeply satisfied. Good stuff! You really should buy yourself a copy!

I know nothing about Tibetan Buddhism and so cannot comment on how well or poorly Pattison does at portraying the beliefs and practices of that religion, but at the very least I believe he fully succeeded in creating a convincing portrait of a culture alien both to American readers and, to a great extent, to the book's Chinese protaganist, Shan Tao Yun, a former police investigator who is now a prisoner in the 404th Construction Brigade, condemned to work on a road gang in the mountains of Tibet because he proved too honest in Beijing. There is much in Shan which inevitably reminded me of Arkady Renko of Martin Cruz Smith's "Gorky Park" and sequels. Both Shan and Renko are driven to find the truth no matter how much their masters would prefer a more convenient solution to the crimes at hand. And Shan, like Renko before him, finds his quest for the truth becomes a path to his own moral growth. For me, the mystery, the setting, and the central characters all worked to make an absorbing tale that kept me interested to the last page.

Eliot Pattison's The Skull Mantra is a masterful first novel. It first catches the reader's attention with its exotic premise of a Chinese prisoner in a Tibetan prison camp asked to solve a murder (body found without its head) by the Communist Chinese officials who have imprisoned him. He is the perfect character to help the reader journey through this novel as he is between worlds himself as a student of Tibetan spirituality through his experience in the camp and as a former official in the Communist government which now persecutes him. One of the joys of this novel is how many of the character, particulary this prisoner and his two marvelously drawn assistants, will grow and change through contact with each other. It creates a very palpable emotional wallop by the end of the book. But mystery fans need not fear that all of this rich cultural tapestry overshadows the mystery. The author is very skilled at teasing the mystery and tension out of the situation. There are clues a-plenty and nothing is ever quite what it seems and the story moves easily from moody chills to action thrills without breaking a sweat. An impressive job that makes this reader anxious to read further mysterys by this talented author.