Sorcerer's Apprentice [Paperback]

Tahir Shah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2002

As a child, Tahir Shah first learned the secrets of illusion from an Indian magician. Two decades later, he sets out in search of this man. SORCERER'S APPRENTICE is the story of his apprenticeship to one of India's master conjurors and his initiation into the brotherhood of godmen. Learning to unmask illusion as well as practice it, he goes on a journey across the subcontinent, seeking out its miraculous and bizarre underbelly, traveling from Calcutta to Madras, from Bangalore to Bombay, meeting sadhus, sages, sorcerers, hypnotists, and humbugs. His quest is utterly unforgettable.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Do you nurse the fond desire to try your hand--or feet, that is--at firewalking? Go ahead. Tahir Shah writes in this beautifully conceived and executed work of literary travel, "Contrary to popular belief, firewalking is dead simple. The skin on the soles of the feet and the ash which covers the coals are both poor conductors of heat. Anyone can do it."

Do we dare trust Shah's word on this point? Maybe so, maybe not, for, though another character in his book bears the sobriquet, Shah is a superbly engaging trickster. The English-born scion of Afghani nobility, Shah takes his readers on a whirlwind trip across southern India that has at its heart one of the most unusual missions in goal-directed travel literature: namely, to find and learn the art of magic from one of India's greatest practitioners, a mysterious fellow named Hakim Feroze. Finding the master in Calcutta, Shah begs Feroze to accept him as a student; unfortunately, as we see, Feroze does so, though not without hesitation. Shah takes us inside sorcery boot camp, which involves strange drills such as digging a deep hole with a dessert spoon, left-handed; separating dried rice and lentils blindfolded; and catching a dozen cockroaches at once in a small tin mug. In recounting his education, Shah reveals a few professional secrets. For one, the Indian rope trick, that classic of conjuring, is effected not by legerdemain, but by the use of hallucinogenic smoke. And as to snake charming, well, 90 percent of India's snakes are nonvenomous, and it's easy enough to find a nonfatal variety that looks like one of the killer breeds.

Full of conjures and trickery, Shah's book offers an often humorous, sidelong education in the dark arts and more: it brings readers along on a surreal tour of India, affording a window to places well off the tourist track. It all adds up to a first-rate adventure. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The child of Afghan parents living in England, Shah (Beyond the Devil's Teeth: Journeys in Gondwanaland) first witnessed magic at age 11, when an Indian Pashtun named Hafiz Jan visited. Twenty years later, he travels to India to learn the magician's trade from the Pashtun. Hafiz Jan sends Shah to Calcutta to learn from his teacher, a magician named Hakim Feroze, who subjects his new apprentice to tortuous physical and mental exercises before casting him out into the streets to make note of whatever oddities he encounters. Shah learns trade secrets of hangmen and gold scroungers, eats in a restaurant that serves dishes prepared from refuse, visits a skeleton-processing factory, watches a psychic surgeon "operate." Then, accompanied by a 12-year-old scam artist he describes as "a walking crime wave," he travels through India meeting sages, sorcerers, astrologers, mystics, healers, miracle workers and other brokers of the supernatural, including a medium who reads fortunes in eyeballs, a chemist who turns drinking water into petrol and a guru named Sri Gobind who causes Easter eggs to emerge from his ear, candles to ignite spontaneously and flowers to bow to him. Unlike most magicians, Shah reveals the secrets chemicals, props, sleight-of-hand and dozens of tricks e.g., Sri Gobind's flowers perform thanks to chloroform and his symbols of "new life and purity" are Safeway's expired chocolate Easter eggs. Despite an unconvincingly tidy final twist, Shah's strange focus and vivid, lurid and amusing descriptions distinguish this travelogue from the crowd. Photos not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (May 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559706260
• ISBN-13: 978-1559706261
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surreal indeed!, June 13, 2006

By 

Margaret Dybala "too many books, too little time" (Pearland, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paperback)

Tahir Shah is an Englishman of Afghani/Scottish descent who writes what may be a new form: The eccentric maybe true, maybe not true, but true on a metaleval travel book. What I mean by that is that, while the details of his day-to-day experiences may be exaggerated and padded to make the book work with a coherent theme, the facts about the country remain true. I genuinely enjoyed this second book of his that I have read. In it, an 11-year-boy meets the guardian of his ancestor's tomb, learns a bit of magic, grows up, travels to India to tour and meet the guardian again, hoping to learn more slight of hand illusion magic. From there he is referred to his teacher's teacher, who is definitely the archytypical teacher as sadist. As Mr. Tahir learns the craft, we learn a great deal about India, about the travelling magicians, godmen, sadhus, charletans, etc. I found the book engaging from beginning to end and highly recommend it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, fascinating, and occasionally magical (a trick?), August 8, 2005

By 

Eric Haines (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paperback)

This book has one of the finest first chapters I've ever read: one day a man from India shows up at an English boy's house to protect him. Note that the book is non-fiction. The rest of the book is how the author (who was that boy) many years later decides to go to India to learn how to be a magician like the man who came to him. At times the author seems to purposely act too credulous and think odd thoughts, to the point where you feel he's being that way in order to make for a more mystical read. He's also a bit disingenuous, in that the book implies he gives up a staid life for adventure; judging from his other books, he has never been too bored or boring. It's nonetheless a fun read, as he goes through many peculiar experiences and learns all sorts of strange knowledge about magical tricks and India itself. A surprising and wonderful (though sometimes slow) book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entrancing, but somewhat disappointing, June 11, 2003

By 

Cordless Iron Man (Curacao) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paperback)

It's a highly entertaining book, full of great stories and some interesting insights into parts of India's culture. But, like the godmen whose stories he tells and whose secrets he gives away, it doesn't amount to much more than entertainment.

The reason that the book is so easily comparable to a novel (cf. other reviews) is that it really has been written like one. The dialogue is almost certainly fictitious and a lot of the events, I believe, have been amended to make better reading. Yes, the book flows and it's a pleasure to read, but perhaps it shouldn't... some of the grit that I was expecting is conspicuously absent.

As much as I enjoyed the book I think that it was missing some of that squalor and detail and that could have made it a truly brilliant book. The photgraphs inside the book are marvelous and Mr. Shah does touch on some issues that are truly heartbreaking (his experience with the witch-hunt, for example); but he never seems to get to the core of the connection between the misery and the illusions.

The book bounces between quaint travelogue of aspiring illusionist and notes from a naive westerner in India (some of his cries of indignation at the conmen he comes across make him sound like a complete fool: I hope they're fictional). But between that there are moments of brilliance and I won't deny that I was entranced by the book.

I certainly recommend it, you'll be telling the stories that you read for weeks; just don't expect any... magic.