Friday, June 28, 2013

Tulku by Peter Dickinson

This review was originally written in 2007.  I am moving reviews from my general blog to my book review blog. 

I am always on the look out for books that bring to life other cultures and other ways of living and this book certainly does that. It is the story of a son of a Christian minister, who was killed during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Theodore, the son and a very devout Christian, escapes and ends up traveling to Tibet with an Englishwoman who is a botanist and her Chinese escort. Theodore has his Christian faith sorely tested and ends up still a believer, but with a much broader view of the range of human experience, both religious and secular.

I enjoyed the book, but toward the end, I felt it got to be rather long. I guess it reflects my own bias, because the religious parts interested me less than the cultural and travel oriented parts. I even liked the botanical things more than I cared for the religion. But, I also remember my early teen years when I was staunchly religious and I think that this might have appealed to me then.

I am not sure how current teens would react to the strict Christian dogma that Theodore seems to espouse. I think many would find it rather outdated. But then I think about how some people nowadays go around asking you if you are a "Christian" and basing a lot of their opinion of you on your answer to that question. It is a question that makes me uncomfortable, as I feel that religion is a completely personal thing, something I would much rather keep entirely to myself.

Again, I enjoyed the book, but I am not sure it would appeal as much to current day teens.

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