Product Description

Anne Marie's Da, a Glaswegian painter and decorator, has always been game for a laugh. So when he first takes up meditation at the Buddhist Centre, no one takes him seriously, especially when his pursuit of the new lama ends in a trip round the Carmunnock bypass. But as Jimmy becomes more involved in a search for the spiritual, his beliefs start to come into conflict with the needs of his wife, Liz. Cracks appear in their apparently happy family life, and the ensuing events change the lives of each family member. Donovan completely captures these lives in her clear-eyed, evocative prose, rendered alternately in the voices of each of the main characters. With seamless grace and astonishing veracity, Buddha Da treats serious themes with humour and its characters with humanity. It is a stunning first novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298754 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 330 pages

Review
"All Donovan's characters are likable and convincing, and her light touch allows her to tackle serious matters without getting too heavy."

About the Author
Winner of the 1997 Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition and a Canongate Prize winner in 2000, ANNE DONOVAN's stories have been widely anthologised and broadcast on radio. Hieroglyphics, her first collection of short stories, was published in 2001 by Canongate. She lives in Glasgow.

Customer Reviews

Buddha Da - Review
The title of this book is what initially intrigued me. Had I not been Scottish I could have been forgiven for missing the meaning of the title all together. As the title suggests this book takes us through a fathers experience when he turns to Buddhism and the effect this had his life and that of his family and friends.

I could not put this book down from start to finish. I devoured every word. The book has been written with wit and humor, every chapter a page turner. On page one I thought that the Glaswegian vocabulary would be difficult read but it wasn't. I was soon reading this book with a Glaswegian accent

Thoroughly enjoyable read
This book tells the story of Glaswegian Painter and Decorator, Jimmy McKenna, as he discovers Buddhism, and the impact this has on him and his immediate family as he becomes more and more committed. The story is told chronologically by the three characters of Jimmy, his wife Liz and daughter Anne Marie. Unlike other books written in this structure, you do not lose the thread of who is talking as you can clearly recognise each character in the writing.

The book is writen as spoken Glaswegian, which means the first few pages take some getting used to. However at the end of this book, I didn't notice this anymore and it suits the book.

The story is simply told and well-written so that you tear through the book at a blistering pace. The characters are well rounded which helps you have an interest in what is happening to them. This is one of the few books I have given five stars too and I thoroughly recommend it.

No Quite Enlightenment Hen, but nae bad either
As a Buddhist living in Scotland I was keen to read this story to see what representation the author gave the philosophy and it's Scottish, Nae, Glaswegian, edge.

And like another reviewer I couldn't put the book down, until it reached what I felt was a weaker middle act than the gentle humour of the preceeding one. The book really draws you in but I felt the path she lead me down was bogged down far too heavily in the life of one of the three characters in the book (written as alternating points of view from Father, Mother and Daughter).

It's the mother that you learn the most from, but like a lot of readers I felt a little cheated that she didn't give more attention as to what was happening in terms of the Painter and Decorator Father's unusual choice of becoming a Buddhist. Maybe I am biased, but I think that his story stops just as it was getting interesting.

I felt that Donovan gives a neutral view of the practice of Buddhism - even with what may based on the (very) Tibetan group Samye Dzong - and I felt that some of her observations were quite carefully researched and gently put forward.

But when she writes outwith of the Glaswegian vernacular I find her characters to be a little thin - especially the characters on the retreat near the beginning of the book. They just seem to exist so that the central three characters have got something to bounce off on. I find the same is true of Irvine Welsh when he writes outwith his "Ebmra-speak." The other voices seem a tad two dimensional.

The daughter's voice is very well developed (with one or two minor niggles - would a twelve year old really say "How's the Yogic Flying going Dad ?") but reading the daughter's inner dialogue was a delight in the main.

If I was being extreme I would say "what does the book offer when removed from it's slang ?" and to be quite honest, and I hate to say this, when I had finished it I felt that it virtually veered into romantic fiction territory with the relationship of Father and Mother. Is this a bad thing ? Not really, but I felt like she ditched a lot of her interesting trains of thought she set up at the start. I did enjoy the romantic, unspoken subtext though and it was a sweet part of the story.

Donovan seems happiest writing from Liz's (the mother's) point of view - maybe she empathises more with her struggle. And Buddha Da comes across as a more (and I am struggling to find the best word here) gently feminine piece of work in the end.

No bad thing either. But I had a niggle at the back of my mind that I was a little disappointed and can't quite put my finger on why.

It has the kind of feel-good factor of say, The movie "The Committments" - seemingly regular inner city lives transformed by something aspirational - but it never quite hits a peak although it gets close.

Donovan seems to work best when working purely observationally on the voice, because she's got "The Patter" down to a fine art here. And she's got a lot of humour but she loses it a little along the way as if it was written in two very different times.

Maybe I am being hard on her. I probably am, because Buddha Da was a brilliant read, I read it in three sittings. It is such a pleasurable book and it's heart is definitely in the right place. You could say it is a compassionate book and I read it laughing out loud a few times. It's warm and I'm over-critical.