The Dance of 17 Lives

Starred review from May 31, 2004
This intelligent and well-written biography-cum-travelogue explores the life of the 17th Karmapa, the teenage lama who fled Chinese-occupied Tibet in 2000 for India. Brown, a freelance journalist who began the book as a magazine article after the lama's daring escape, traces the Karmapa's story but also uses the account to give Western readers a quick sketch of the nature, history and perennial conflicts of Tibetan Buddhism. Unlike other Western writers who tend to romanticize Buddhism in Asia, Brown evenhandedly paints it as a religion that is as rife with political considerations and human foibles as it is with miraculous incarnations and incomparable teachers. At times the early historical chapters can be too detailed, but Brown's balanced tone serves him well, and the writing is superbly accessible. He is particularly interested in the 11 years that elapsed between the 16th Karmapa's death in 1981 and the recognition of his seven-year-old successor in 1992; Brown shows these years to be characterized by feuding and accusations among the 16th's closest disciples. In the later chapters, he also chronicles China's mid-1990s crackdown on Buddhist practitioners in Tibet who remained loyal to the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese government labeled a dangerous villain. Far from being a mere report on the 17th Karmapa and his exodus, this is an excellent history of modern Tibetan Buddhism on a broad scale.

June 1, 2004
When most Westerners think of Buddhism, they conjure images of an eccentric Zen master or the seeming perfect peace and equanimity embodied in the Dalai Lama. In the tradition of Gilles van Grasdorff's Hostage of Beijing: The Abduction of the Panchen Lama but far more effective, this readable and interesting account expands that vision by illuminating the high-stakes politics of Tibetan Buddhism, the arcane process of identifying the reincarnation of a high lama, and the importance of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in addition to the Dalai Lama. British journalist Brown (The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief ) describes the recognition of the 17th Karmapa, religious leader of the Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism, his harrowing escape in 2000 from Chinese-occupied Tibet to India, and the political intrigue and infighting that surrounds him to this day. Recommended for popular collections.-James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of North Carolina at Asheville Lib.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2004
China's brutal occupation of Tibet and efforts to quash Tibetan Buddhism have caused countless tragedies, engendering compelling tales of activism, valor, and loss. This "living" biography of Tibetans caught up in the struggle offer unusual insiders' perspectives. Some of the saddest and most puzzling incidents associated with China's occupation of Tibet involve conflicts over the recognized reincarnations of high lamas. The fate of the eleventh Panchen Lama is chronicled in Isabel Hilton's " The Search for the Panchen Lama " (2000). Now British journalist Brown covers the battle over the identity of the seventeenth Karmapa. Brown provides an enlightening explanation of the mystical process by which reincarnated lamas are found and identified, then launches a gripping account of the labyrinthine dispute between factions aligned behind two possible "emanations" of the sixteenth Karmapa. Tangled rumors, rivalries among lamas, a secret letter, gnarled court cases, and violence all feature in this complex and startling tale, as does the daring 1992 escape from Tibet by Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the then-14-year-old boy the Dalai Lama recognizes as the true seventeenth Karmapa. Brown's informative and frank portrait of the courageous young lama conveys the power of Tibetan Buddhism and the blight of "theological politics." (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)