Product Description

In her hugely acclaimed debut Anne Donovan tells an endearing, humorous yet unsentimental story of a working-class Glaswegian man who discovers Buddhism, rejects old habits and seeks a life more meaningful, only to alienate his immediate family in the process. Moving seamlessly between three family members, Donovan's clear-eyed, richly expressive prose sings off the page. Each character's voice has its own subtle rhythm and the conclusion is a poignant mixture of hope and lingering reservations. "Buddha Da" is a delight from one of Britain's best writers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29978 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
An engaging account.
--Independent

About the Author
Anne Donovan is the author of the prize-winning novel Buddha Da, the short-story collection Hieroglyphics and Being Emily. Buddha Da was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Scottish Book of the Year Award, and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It received a Scottish Arts Council Award and won the Le Prince Maurice Award in Mauritius in 2004. She has also written for radio and the stage and has been working on the screenplay for the film of Buddha Da. 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.