Thoughts On Monkey

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If you've followed this blog for a while, you might remember that a few months ago I read a comic version of this book called The Monkey King because Jeff Markowitz recommended it.  Then I saw the actual book at the library book sale and naturally I had to get it.

Monkey is an ancient Chinese tale that tells the story of a monkey who is made of heaven and earth.  After this auspicious birth, he leads the other monkeys into a cave behind a waterfall where they're all very happy, and he becomes their king.  But after a few years, he realizes he's going to die and is terrified.  He travels the world for many years trying to find a way to acheive immortality, until he stumbles upon a Buddhist teacher who shows him how to stave off death, turn himself into a tree, and other fun stuff.  Then he gets tossed out for showing off and returns to the waterfall cave, where his fellow monkeys are being terrorized by a demon.  Using his new powers, Monkey defeats the demon, starts building an army, and soon gets into a lot of trouble.

Monkey is one of those books that can appeal to all age groups--it's written in the simple style of fairy tales or fables (although Kherdian, the translator--or "reteller" as the book puts it, which worries me--uses anachronistic language that seems really strange; i.e., "Chill, Monkey!") and I can see it appealing to kids.  At the same time, there's a lot of themes in this book that can make an adult really think, too.  It's a much deeper book than one would expect at first glance.

My main problem with Monkey was, well, Monkey.  To be honest I was kind of rooting for that little bastard to get his ass smacked into the ground--he's rude, arrogant, and a bully.  If there's someone who does not deserve to acheive immortality, it's him.  And is not wanting to die really a good impetus for spiritual growth?  Shouldn't one want to be reincarnated?  Also, that fairy tale, fable-y style of writing has never worked for me, even when I was a little kid.  It's just too hard for me to connect to the characters that way.

So while I do whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who's interested in Buddhism or Chinese culture, or even if you're looking for a different sort of fairy tale to read to your kids, I just couldn't get through it.  Not that I've given up completely--I do intend to get back to it.  But I don't think it will happen this month.

Deep Thoughts

Monkey's search for immortality reminded me what one of the main purposes of religion is--to ease our fear of death.  All religions in some way offer a chance at ever-lasting life, or they're not very successful religions.

Yet in the modern world, do the majority of us really believe a religion can make us immortal?  Not just metaphorically or spiritually, but actually physcially immortal?  No.  But science--science does hold the possibilty of that, as books like The Adoration of Jenna Fox demonstrate. 

So after reading Monkey, I'd have to say that science really is the new religion.  Which is sad.

And even though I didn't like Monkey, I do have to confess that it's revived my interest Buddhism yet again.

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Writing from a Female Perspective

Today, mystery writer Jeff Markowitz is guest blogging about writing a female protagonist from the perspective of a man.  Jeff is the author of the Cassie O’Malley Mysteries, an amateur sleuth series set deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

Welcome, Jeff!

I hear sometimes from readers who are surprised that the main character in my mystery series is a woman.  One reader explained it this way.  “Many men write superficially convincing female characters and if the plot is good enough, well cool. But very, very few write women whose character can carry the story.”  So I am gratified when my readers, particularly my female readers, tell me that they find Cassie O’Malley to be a believable character who can carry not only a story, but a series.
   
Genre fiction has not always treated women kindly.  For many years, female characters in genre fiction (and, to be honest, in most other fiction) existed in order to be rescued, and to admire the male characters doing the rescuing.  Genre fiction has always loved the “damsel in distress.”  But the truth is, the mystery genre would not be thriving today if mystery writers weren’t writing characters, both male and female, who are three-dimensional, men and women who may sometimes be larger than life, but who are never written “smaller than life.”   

Readers of mysteries want stories that keep them guessing, that are marked by unexpected twists and turns, but it's not the mystery that hooks them and keeps them coming back.  It's the characters.  It's important for me to remember that the story I'm telling is Cassie's story.  The murder mystery is just the vehicle to tell her story.

Cassie O’Malley is a woman whose life has not lived up to her expectations.  Let me share a little bit of her back story (Authors love back story).  As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Cassie had her life’s plan neatly mapped out in a three-ring binder.  She was going to be an investigative reporter, walking the halls of power in Washington, a force for truth, beauty, and the American way, holding politicians to their promises by the power of her words, exposing the hypocrites and the cheats and, along with her equally successful husband, becoming rich and famous in the process.

Shortly after graduation, she marries her college sweetheart and less than a year later, he dies in his sleep.  When we meet Cassie, she’s in her mid-thirties, widowed nearly fifteen years, living alone in a condo at the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, her dream of becoming a big-time investigative reporter having been replaced by the reality of her job writing about space aliens and sea monsters, psychic spies and Siamese triplets, for a barely reputable tabloid magazine.  And she’s good at it.  She’s successful, but hardly happy.  My editor refers to Cassie as a “semi-depressed, semi-alcoholic journalist.”

The question, however, remains.  Why did I decide to make my protagonist female?  The first book in the series opens with a character, alone, on a back road in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, in the hour before the sun comes up.   Perhaps you’re thinking that putting a female character into that desolate environment heightens the tension right from the opening scene.  And that may, in fact, be the result of my decision, but it has nothing to do with my decision-making.

I don’t want my characters to see the story through my eyes.  If the story is going to work, I have to see it through their eyes; I have to see the story through Cassie’s eyes.  In some ways, it is easier for me to maintain this separation with a female character.  Certainly Cassie and I share some personality traits, for example our love of jazz (and whiskey), but she is her own person, more clever than I am, more assertive, way more interesting.  If there has been any "bleeding" of personality, after six years writing Cassie’s story, it is that perhaps I have become more like Cassie, rather than Cassie becoming more like me.

And now, Cassie is back in It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder (ISBN 978-1-59414-729-6), a Christmas mystery that will keep you laughing and guessing until the final showdown.

At odds with her new boss, tabloid reporter Cassie O’Malley finds herself covering the mall at Christmas.  Cassie wants nothing to do with the assignment.  Then Big Mack turns up dead, in the men’s room.  Sensing an opportunity for fifteen minutes of fame, mall security guard Oliver Berryhill spins a heroic tale of his confrontation with the loan shark.  The police are skeptical, but Big Mack’s son, the even bigger Little Mack is determined to avenge his father’s murder. 

Barely a week later, a second body turns up and Cassie finds herself covering a double homicide.  In a race against time, Cassie must solve the murder before a third victim is killed in It’s Beginning to look a Lot Like Murder.

Jeff's latest novel, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder has just been released by Five Star.  To find out more, please visit http://jeffmarkowitzmysteries.com.

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R&R Challenge: The Monkey King by Wu Cheng-En

The Rejuvenate and Renew Reading Challenge is hosted by Becky at One Literature Nut.  The challenge is to read three non-fiction books this summer!  Quite a challenge for me, but I gave it a go.  First I read Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art by Richard Wilkinson; and I started, but wasn't able to finish, Reading Egyptian Art (also by Wilkinson). 

A few weeks ago, I read on writer Jeff Markowitz's blog that his first novel was about Buddhism.  Since I've been wanting to read more about Buddhism for a while now, I asked him if he could recommend any books on the subject.  Jeff's recommendation surprised me:  Monkey King by Wu Cheng-En.  Jeff assured me it was the best introduction to the subject of Buddhism he could think of.



The Monkey King tells the story of a Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang who walked from China to India and back again to bring Buddhist scriptures to his country.  But you'll forget all about that when you read it:  beautifully illustrated, it's a fable and adventure story whose protagonist is a monkey made out of stone.  The monkey leads all the other monkeys into a cave behind a waterfall, where they like to sleep; and because of his bravery, they make him their king.

As the monkey ages, however, he starts to get nervous about dying.  He doesn't want to leave the earth where he's having so much fun (can you say mid-life crisis?).  Someone tells him that a person can achieve immortality through the study of Buddhism; so he travels to the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars and devotes himself humbly to religious study.  His teacher releases him after many years, asking only that the Monkey King not use his newfound abilities to cause trouble.  Clearly this teacher knows NOTHING about monkeys, because the first thing the Monkey King does when he gets home is start to build an army.

The Monkey King is a very quick, enjoyable read, and it can definitely be read purely for pleasure.  But it also contains many layers of deeper historical and religious significance.  Since I was reading it as an introduction to Buddhism, here is what I learned:

• Buddhism is the shizzle:  You can become immortal and gain mad fighting skillz.  Awesome.
  
• Reality is all in the mind:  The Monkey King can bend reality and objects to his will, changing the size of the weapons, along with the size and number of himself.  He's definitely not constricted by reality as normal people experience it, and uses its bendable nature--along with his cleverness--to beat his foes.
  
• The Buddha is inescapable:  The only person the Monkey isn't able to defeat or trick is Buddha himself, whom the Monkey King meets.  He can somersault around the world, but he can't jump out of the Buddha's hand.
  
• Buddhism challenges authority:  The Monkey King mostly uses his powers to unseat, trick, and defeat powerful kings; which seems to suggest Buddhism was something of a subversive religion when it came to China.

Whether you're interested in Buddhism or not, I definitely recommend The Monkey King.  It's a fun story, and it's free to read online.

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