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Reader Reviews of THE TOY BUDDHASol said Mar 2, 2007, 11:25 AM: |
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paperback (forthcoming) cover The Adventure of an imaginary lifetime began with Beginner's Luke. Now Luke is back and better than ever in this stand-alone, mock-epic, enlightening spoof of all things held sacred in American culture. WARNING: The Toy Buddha cause vertigo, euphoria, lunatic laughter. May fundamentally alter you so the old rules no longer apply, so it's okay if clothes become optional, okay to make love not war, okay to set fire to your country club, dig up your neighborhood golf course, plant an organic garden and build your new community one puff at a time … Download The Toy Buddha today!  I'm starting this thread as a place to post reader reviews of The Toy Buddha as they come in. Beginner's Luke, the first novel in the series, is still FREE here. #1: THE TOY BUDDHA: The Road from Experience to … Wisdom? Alyce Mooreland, Los Angeles, CaliforniaI told myself I wasn't going to write a second review of the BEGINNER'S LUKE Series, by my old buddy Sol Luckman, but here I am again after being thoroughly taken by Book II, THE TOY BUDDHA.
Part of what I am is just plain nostalgic for my undergrad days in Chapel Hill, which Luckman calls in mock-homage to Thomas Wolfe Pulpit Hill. I, too, remember when “Pulpit Hill” was just a sleepy little university town, when there was always a free parking space and traffic jams were things cities had–the pre-Ben Folds Five days when the Pressure Boys and Snatches of Pink ruled weekend nights at Cat's Cradle … But I digress. THE TOY BUDDHA is honestly quite beyond any other novel I've ever read, though it has certain affinities to the sustained high-wire performances of novels like Tom Robbins' ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION and Robert Coovers' THE PUBLIC BURNING. Luke and Billy's hallucinatory and madcap pursuit of the peripatetic Buddha, who suddenly and briefly reappears in 1987 in Pulpit Hill, as central as it is as a plot device, becomes virtually a sideshow compared to Luke's by turns hilarious and merciless introspection in this imaginary novel-memoir that at times reads like a crazed voyeur's wet dream. Not that Luke is going crazy, though he could, and perhaps should, be–with a faux friend like Billy inviting a crackup to make F. Scott Fitzgerald weep in the wake of one betrayal after another. Admittedly, the jury remains out as to what Billy, a.k.a. William Morocco, ultimately represents. Is he a friend or a fiend? a visionary or a lunatic? Perhaps the most we can say is that he seems meant to mirror an older and more jaded version of Luke back to himself as a “cautionary tale” of the imagination gone sour. In a word, THE TOY BUDDHA serves up a trenchant critique of the alarming tendency most people have to look outside themselves for meaning, be it spiritual or political–whether they're giving away their power to a religion, a guru, an elected official, a savior, or the Buddha himself now back on the loose in these unprecedented pages. “The Road of Experience leads to the Palace of Wisdom,” wrote Blake. Luke certainly finds himself disabused through his “experience” with Billy and the Buddha. The question is will this ultimately produce “wisdom”? I'm willing to bet it will, eventually, at least a little, and I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into Book III, PORTRAITS OF AN IMAGINARY YOUNG MAN. |
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Re: Reader Reviews of THE TOY BUDDHASol said Mar 7, 2007, 11:30 AM: |
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#2. THE TOY BUDDHA: Life Itself Is the Proper Binge Roseann Gabrys, Wyandotte, Michigan You'll want to read this book because of the possibly guilty pleasures it will provide. Things you've done, things you've never done, things you wish you had done and, of course, all those things you wish you’d never done. You can't read about Luke Soloman's brush with life's landscape without examining some of your own experiences and therein lies the beauty. After all, the unexamined life is hardly worth living …
Julia Child said, “Life itself is the proper binge.” In THE TOY BUDDHA Luke definitely explores the basis and bases (not to mention the baseness) of bingeing. As the BEGINNER'S LUKE Series continues in Book II, we find our hero searching for freedom, fun and females–not necessarily in that order and ordering up a plentiful portion of each. The first chapter sets the stage with a Bacchanalian Halloween celebration that gives Luke the opportunity to expand his mind with hallucinogenic drugs. If, as the plot proposes, we really are imagining it all, LSD is bound to put one's imagination in overdrive and the irony is not lost on Luke. His reason for being hinges on the idea of inventing his identity. The mind is a deep subject and being allowed to probe its depths via voyeurism is a rare privilege. That's the best part of the book: getting a glimpse of the thoughts that make up the interior of another's mind and then realizing how familiar some of them are. We can relate. Early in the narrative Luke's heart is split in two. Who hasn't had to deal with that (a time or two)? Heartache is one of those lessons that if we don't learn we just keep repeating. At least suffering can make you very aware of being alive and it's the awareness we're chasing. Luke is looking for a teacher and just like the axiom, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. This particular teacher doesn't appear in your ordinary places either. When he turns up, everything else turns up a notch. All the novel's settings are recalibrated and whatever is on the dial above “high” takes over as the story becomes a matter of life and death. The ride crests and then the downhill speed increases until Luke is going so fast he catches up with himself. It’s almost a detective thriller as Luke and his bud Billy lead us along looking for something we sense we're seeking even if we're not sure what it is or where to look. I won't spoil the Adventure for you; suffice to say Luke survives. When the road rounds the final curve, we find ourselves like a rabbit running in a circle, right back where we started in Luke's little hometown. Rabbits remind me of ALICE IN WONDERLAND: “Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” That's what happens with this marvelous mystery. As the sun sets in the west, and the dark night of the soul descends, the answers seem more elusive than ever. We can only take heart in the knowledge that the Adventure hasn't ended, this cliffhanging segment leaves us hopeful that the next installment, PORTRAITS OF AN IMAGINARY YOUNG MAN, will offer more clues and bring us closer to truth–the holy grail, the prize in the Cracker Jack box. Come on, man, don't abandon us now! It's just getting good … |
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Re: Reader Reviews of THE TOY BUDDHALuke said Mar 24, 3:46 PM: |
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#3: THE TOY BUDDHA: An Enriching Sequel to BEGINNER'S LUKE The Toy Buddha, Book II of the Beginner's Luke Series, picks up where its predecessor left off: with the fearless Luke Soloman continuing his trek down the Experience Trail. In this compelling set of adventures, though, Luke's journey is as much physical as it is metaphysical. At a festive Halloween party hosted by his imaginary friend, Billy, Soloman trips out on acid. At the height of his delirium, Soloman witnesses a glowing Buddha statue passing nearby, but its significance seems, well, insignificant, and Soloman writes off the experience as per the typical side effects of a bad acid trip. Time goes on, and Soloman's inward quest for self-discovery takes a few quirky turns: he mysteriously grows six inches overnight, begins playing basketball regularly, and, inevitably has his heart broken by both his heart's one true desire, Vanessa, and his trusted imaginary friend. In the midst of his emotional grief, he witnesses the Buddha once again only this time the statue actually speaks to him, offering only the following terse axiom: “You can't travel the path 'til you've become the path.” Before he has a chance to delve the depths of the statement, Soloman suffers a near fatal accident After he awakens from a dream-filled stupor, he reconciles with his friend and beloved, begins to mend, and eventually enjoys the pleasures he has heretofore only imagined with the lovely Vanessa. Unable to deny the significance of the Buddha's recurrence in his life, though, Soloman soon ventures off again, on a continued search for even deeper meaning–if there is any at all. The Toy Buddha is an enriching sequel to Beginner's Luke, helping to further define the original tome, as well as make its mission that much more clear. Luckman's writing continues to be emboldened by his charged plunges into the abstract, and his playful, yet sincere, treatment of the ethereal continues to make for an enlightening read. If Book III of this engaging six-part series is anything like its progenitors, Luckman's cadre of devoted readers is destined to only grow. |
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