BEWARE: One man's bookflap summary is another man's spoiler.My heart is full after reading this book. As with the first book, "Water Touching Stone" succeeds on all levels: character exposition, plot, but especially on meaningful themes, vivid descriptions of the landscape (both natural and man-made) as well as the author's elegant language.The later Shan books fall short, in this regard, compared to the first two.After I'd read Pattison's first investigator Shan novel, "The Skull Mantra," I searched for more titles in the series but could not find the second. So I had to read several later installments, out of order. None of the subsequent books touched me as indelibly as the first book -- until this one.With this (and the first book), the author's intention clearly is more than to present a mystery, set in an exotic corner of the world, that baffles and entertains. I almost sense here a vow by the author to make hearts break when they read about the cultural smothering and persecution in the last 80 years by the Chinese in Tibet.Murders of loved ones (both offspring and fiance), genocide, fear, futility, endurance are all grist in this story.Plotwise, the book is a series of cliff-hanger situations. And yet, I never felt the chain of events were arbitrary, or hyped just to create suspense. That must be incredibly difficult for an author to pull off.At first I thought the "Water Touching Stone" title referred only to heritage -- to the ancient system of underground tunnels and now empty cisterns that once nurtured human culture in a desolate, desert area of Tibet.Then I realized that the title also refers to cleansing through trial, as some of the principal characters suffer profound losses.Shan, the Chinese-born protagonist, is fresh from his years of imprisonment in a Tibet labor-to-death camp. So his emotional injuries are still fresh, too. And yet he is able to help others attempt to save the old Buddhist priests, prevent the mysterious murders of boys taking place among the displaced horse-centered Tibetan clans.Along the way, Shan has many moments to recall his deceased father, who had instilled independence and wisdom ... and his son, who was snatched away due to political circumstance.In some key ways, the book tells how Shan and his partners fail to prevent the destruction they were hoping to.In other ways, they emerge from their several defeats with greater love for those (and what) they have lost, and greater resolve.This book was slow going for me. Some titles, I gallop through. But this was nutrient-dense, sort of like reading a Henry James novel or the Wall Street Journal. By that I mean I have to chew slowly and thoroughly. Sometimes I had to quit after only a chapter to let the material digest.-------Here, in the same sequence as they appear in the story, are some passages that struck me:"On the floor was a pebble and on the pebble was a lichen and on the lichen lived a mite." (Chapter 5)"Why weren't bows used in all meditation? he wondered. So perfectly flexible, so perfectly taut, so perfectly focused. He remembered a blizzard day in his prison when a lama had issued all the prisoners imaginary bows and had them shoot imaginary arrows for hours, until no one could tell if they were drawing the bow or the bow was drawing them. He drew the bow (in his hands) back until and held it, reciting the Tao chapter again and again. He held it until it hurt, until he knew what he had to do, and longer, until the danger of the thing he had to do was out of his mind and the bow was drawing him. Then he closed his eyes and in his mind took aim at a paper bird." (Chapter 8)"Maybe humans existed ... just to keep virtue alive and to pass it on to someone else." (Chapter 11)After emerging from the underground labyrinth:"Never had he been anywhere where he felt so connected to the ancient world. It wasn't a quality of history he felt, nothing like the distanced created by museum displays. It was a direct, visceral quality of continuity, of the great chain of life. No, perhaps it was only the chain of truth he sensed. Or maybe even simpler, a realization that people always had done good things, and it was only good things, not people, that endured." (Chapter 11)"When is contraband not contraband? ... When the government brings it in." (Chapter 12)Spoken by the priest Gendun:"So instead of human beings fighting the wrong, he told me, they just say it is for governments to do so. And the governments say we must have armies to be safe, so armies are raised. And armies say we must have wars to be safe, so wars are fought. And wars kill children and devour souls that have not ripened. All because people just want to be old, instead of being true." (Chapter 14)"The monks in the circle were like the untamed, feral animals of the changtang, untouched and pure. A species near extinction."(Chapter 15)Female American scientist, Warp (whose name is a weaving term) to her husband:"When you have young children, you go to the giant toy stores and buy expensive plastic things. They get older and you buy expensive electrical things at a different store. Then it's expensive clothes. It's called Western evolution. ... You mark your existence, and your place in the herd, by what stores you shop at." (Chapter 18) Warp's husband, after reflecting:"You were right that day in the toy store, I told her. Nobody's accountable. People sit back and let bad things happen. Forests get leveled. Cultures get destroyed, traditions get cast aside because they're not Internet compatible. Children get raised to think watching television is required for survival and get all their culture from advertising." (Chapter 18)
At our bookstore, this is shelved under crime, and yet I find myself hesitating to call it crime fiction. Yes, there is a murder - there are several murders, actually - and there is crime, and there is a detective, but this was unlike any other piece of crime fiction I ever read.Although it's the second in a series of novels about detective Shan, this book was the first I read completely. I started reading the first book a while ago and even though I liked it, I didn't finish it and returned it. But by that time I had already borrowed the second book from someone else and since it was sitting here I figured I might as well read it.And I'm really, really glad I did.Shan Tao Yan, a former Chinese bureaucrat who ended up being sent to a Himalayan labor camp is helping two of his Tibetan friends discover the truth about the disappearance of a teacher in the Xinjiang region. The disappearance turns out to be a murder, and it seems that after the teacher, the students are in danger, too. But why was the teacher killed, and why are the students being hunted?It's a very slow-paced book, and it does take a while to get going - and by that I mean far more than the usual 20 to 50 pages. But that didn't make it any less compelling for me - Shan and his traveling companions captured my attention right away and I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. During Shan's quest for truth, we also get an impression for what it's like to be living under Chinese rule for the different people living in the region, and many of the things that are described in this book are horrifying, to say the least. And we get an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and its traditions.What I loved best about this book is the quiet beauty of Pattison's writing. It's very calm and beautiful and, because of its calm, all the more powerful. It's difficult to describe, but his writing moved me more than anything I have read in a while. The crime plot as such is well done and, once it does get going, the book is hard to put down. There are a lot of seemingly unconnected crimes and leads in the beginning, and I found myself asking where it would all lead, until it suddenly all came together and made sense. But the book would only be half as good if it weren't for the many "minor" characters we meet on Shan's journey - each with their own backstory, sometimes told only in one sentence. It's a very sad book, at times, but there are also moments of hope in between, which make the sadness bearable. It's really a very beautiful book, and one I am really glad to have read. And I've already ordered the one before and the one after that.
What do You think about Water Touching Stone (2002)?
Dans la même veine que le précédent roman, The Skull Mantra, l’inspecteur Shan se retrouve à défendre les minorités opprimées, cette fois à la frontière du Tibet et du Xinjiang. Tous les commentaires que j’ai pu faire pour le précédent roman sont valables pour celui-ci aussi. Mais il m’a d’autant plus touché que je suis allée au Xinjiang l'été précédent, et que j’ai donc pu mieux imaginer ce dont l'auteur parlait.C'est un livre qui non seulement nous tient en haleine tout du long grâce à son intrigue bien ficelé et pleine de mystère, mais qui nous fait aussi réfléchir sur des aspects de la Chine bien souvent occultés.
—Melaslithos
A beautifully and skillfully written book that weaves Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and a story of mystery and adventure. Complex and compelling, this is the second book in which the exiled Han investigator, Shan Tao Yun has to confront his fears and memories while searching for a rabid killer in the lock-down culture of Chinese controlled Tibet.Here is one insightful sample: "The one word I would never use for Tibetans," she said, with a strangely distant tone, is harmless...Everyone else we can talk with, we can negotiate with, we can educate, we can teach the wisdom of becoming something else...But Tibetans just stay Tibetans."At least as good as The Skull Mantra, it offers insights into modern China and its determination to dominate the ethnic cultures it has engulfed, even as it, too, is changing.
—HBalikov
I was told that this isn't as good as the first one, but for me - no. I don't see how it could have been made better. It is long book, and maybe hard for some to get through, but I was so involved in what was going on, and the characters, and the mystery(s) that I didn't really notice. I am a slow reader, and it took me a while, but I definitely speeded up the last fifty pages, I couldn't help myself. Anyway it is a murder mystery, sort of, taking place in Chinese occupied areas in and near Tibet. I don't know how it would read to someone who hasn't read the first book, The Skull Mantra - if there would be information missing, but I imagine it would work as a stand-alone book.
—Lorelei
