It's no secret to my readers that I admire the writing of Roland Merullo (a dozen posts here, scan for his name) and so tonight I will be among those listening to his reading from Breakfast with Buddha, which I first blogged here: Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge, Mass, 7 PM.
Finished it last night.
Few writers have the range with language that Roland does. Or with emotion. Or with the contemplative life. This book is funny, one of the acceptable ways, so far as this reader is concerned, to grapple with matters of deep spiritual consequence. If you're one of the hundreds of millions (possibly billions as we're up to, what, 6.7 billion hum beans at this point) who has meditated, done yoga, thought about the meaning of life, hungered for something deeper, read a book about how to be happy, or gone to a lecture about Buddhism/Christianity/Judaism/Jainism or whateverism, you want to read this book. Cheerfully, laugh-out-loud funnily, and poignantly, Roland takes his main character, Otto Ringling, from loving family-man and NY publisher to the edge of enlightenment with a cross-country journey that stops for sausage, bowling, and slot machines.
Otto's love for his wife and family are enough to make this book worth the read--few fathers in literature are so bold in their pronouncements--but when you include his very light but profound understanding of human nature and the meaning of existence, you have a treasure. And, oh, his uninvited passenger is a spiritual master, a Rinpoche in robes.
Write on, Roland. I can't wait for the next one.
