Review by Booklist Review
The insight gained from Merrill's world travels and his tenure as director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program serve him well in this trio of essays examining three very different cultures in the Middle East and Asia. The titles of the essays, Ceremony, Expedition, and War, represent three human endeavors that, for Merrill, share in common their profound influence on the course of history. In the first essay, Merrill recounts his travels through Malaysia to observe an illegal shamanic healing ritual against the backdrop of a traditional Islamic society clashing with encroaching modern values. In the second, Merrill retraces a rarely remembered voyage made in 1921 by poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse, traveling from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and revealing a dramatically altered China from the one Perse witnessed. The third and most provocative essay finds Merrill crisscrossing the landscape encompassing Jordan, Syria, and Israel, and bordering war-torn Iraq. Drawing on his literary gifts as an accomplished poet, Merrill provides a much-needed, truly illuminating perspective on these cultures, which is sadly missing from our mainstream media.--Hays, Carl Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Merrill (Things of the Hidden God) harnesses his travels into a thoughtful first-person account that unfortunately gets bogged down where it should soar. In three linked essays, Merrill meditates on the effects of terror upon international politics, religion, and society-without stopping to tirade. He travels through Malaysia to watch an illegal shamanistic healing ritual, the main puteri; he then follows the path of poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse's 1921 expedition from Beijing to Ulan Bator as a frame through which to examine modern China; and lastly, in 2007, Merrill makes his way through the Middle East's Levant following the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The mongrel work of lamentation, reportage, and memoir are unified by the author's keen eye and voice-he's a veteran, open-minded traveler looking everywhere for answers, posing every question with a willingness to dig deep into darker places. The current director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Merrill is a "writer's writer": he spins sentences made of gold, makes essayistic moves like Montaigne-so it's surprising that overall, his book lacks liveliness, and the density of prose and lack of narrative direction can make the reading a slog. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, 2005, etc.) treatise explores the nature of terror, its place in the post-9/11 world and how it unites and galvanizes those in the throes of it. His trio of meditative essays is derived from exotic journeys to Malaysia, China and the Dead Sea, as well as from a panoramic view of war-torn Syria atop the plateau of the Golan Heights while pondering "the consequences of living in fear." The setting for his first essay is the muggy jungles of Kelantan in Malaysia, where Merrill observed the performance of a now-forbidden spirit-raising healing ritual presided over by a shaman to rid a village girl of her maladies. Seated with a tour guide on a wooden plank just beyond the stage, he takes stock of the state of faith, the nation and the aftermath of the turmoil of 9/11. A wandering expedition partially retracing the Beijing sojourn 19th-century poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse finds Merrill transfixed by Chinese history; he recounts a visit to a Zen Buddhist poet in Maui where he pensively tapped into the nature of human suffering after a week-long bout of stomach flu. The final section details the writer's adventures visiting the Middle East's Levant territory, where the American military occupation of Iraq still evokes local scorn. The author's poetic background is evident in many lushly descriptive passages, and he clearly, rationally articulates his astute worldview. The essays can be hyperactively circuitous, however, with frequent digressions into the allegorical and the anecdotal. Terror, Merrill posits, is a fact of life, and his philosophically acute amalgam of religious, historical and political reflections will surely incite discussion and lively debate. A unique travelogue boosted by wonderfully creative thinking with a political slant.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
