Bone Mountain

[camerata]

Bone Mountain by Eliot Pattison is one of the best books I read in 2008. It's actually the third book in a detective series set in modern Tibet.

Briefly, Shan Tao Yun was a corruption investigator in Beijing who pissed off some Party bigwig and ended up in a hard-labour camp in Tibet. After 4 years in the gulag he is practising Tibetan Buddhism and is sympathetic to the Tibetan cause. By the third book in the series he's escaped and been asked by a lama to return part of a sacred "deity" to the valley it was stolen from 50 years ago. What he doesn't know is that it had been in the possession of the PLA's elite 54th Mountain Combat brigade and they want it back. Getting to the valley becomes both a spiritual journey and a mystery to be unraveled layer by layer.

Pattison really knows how to write a mystery and he really knows Tibet. The book gives a very powerful impression of what Chinese oppression feels like to the average Tibetan in the mountains, but it isn't a downer and it has some interesting examples of how non-violence can work. Although it's a mystery, the backdrop to Bone Mountain is the repression of Buddhism and sacred belief in Tibet, and the story is populated with Party-approved lamas, unregistered lamas, imprisoned lamas, warrior lamas and a whole variety of ex-monks and lamas.

According to the author's website, among the reason's he writes about Tibet are:

-I write about Tibet not because I am a Buddhist but because I am not a Buddhist, because the ultimate treasures of Tibet are ones that transcend religion or philosophy, lessons that the rest of the world needs desperately to learn. Converting to the cause of Tibet does not mean a conversion to Buddhism, it means a conversion to compassion, self-awareness, human rights and political equality.

-I write about Tibet because in a war between an army of monks bearing prayer beads and an army of soldiers bearing machine guns I will side with the monks every time.

Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism.

[Jimjim]

Sounds like a porno...

[camerata]

Well, you'll have to read it to find out exactly what the Bone Mountain is.

[khaowong1]

Thanks, I am always looking for interesting Buddhist fictions. Do you remember who wrote those stories about the Buddhist monk who kind of played detective when asked? I forgot the authors name. He had a dek wat that travelled around with him when he was sent to different places.

[camerata]

If it's set in Thailand you may be thinking of Nick Wilgus and his Father Ananda series.

[khaowong1]

If it's set in Thailand you may be thinking of Nick Wilgus and his Father Ananda series.

Yes, that's it. Thanks for the info. I love those books, I think he's written three of them now. Father Ananda was a former policeman if I recall right.