Re: 2023 Nebula Winner Saint Of Bright Doors

On 7/1/24 22:55, Titus G wrote:

On 10/06/24 01:17, James Nicoll wrote:

Nebula Award For Novel
>
The Saint Of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
>

 15/06/24
I have read over half of this and I am struggling. The prose is
OK, the world building just maintains my interest, the plot has
promise and protagonist Fetter is a paranoid, (perhaps with reason),
secretive weirdo who sees both Buddhism Heaven and Hell which coexist
without awareness of each other, (there might be doors). His purpose
since birth and his conditioning since is to assassinate his Father, a
charismatic religious leader of which there are many, and he has been
trained in such things as murder. I know hardly anything about Buddhism
and its mythology and am not interested in research so have no
background for this novel. Is also very slow moving which makes it
sometimes difficult to stay awake whilst reading.
I am not sure whether to continue or not.
02/07/24
I haven't picked it up in two weeks so probably won't finish it unless
someone inspires me with their appreciation.
 

Well Zen Buddhism was very useful to the Samurai of
Feudal Japan. So this is a Ninja (old Chinese for spy)which
were several clans in different domains trained in spying
and several unfair to the opponent martial arts and murder
was the least of that. They worked to advance the Lord of
the clan and the best known of such practioners may have been
Hanzo who worked to bodyguard Tokugawa Ieyasu as Ieyasu pursued
a path to take control of Japan to save it from the wasteful
interdomain wars. Yes the Shogun was a military dictator but
the peace served Japan very well.
Now Buddhist Heaven and Hell are right here, right now.
You focus on what is good in your life and it looks just like
Heaven and if you focus on the bad things happening in this
life it is certainly hell where the innocent are murdered again
and again in futile wars built around myths.  Now to see
both view points clearly and to reside in the instant which
just went past unnoticed again, you would be in Nirvana.
By the way many forms of Buddhism do not bother with heaven
or hell because the focus is usually on other matters such
as collecting voluntary contributions to the Religious Community
which is responsible for promulgating there version of the
true doctrine. But for popular consumption and to encourage
civic virtues a heaven and a hell are handy.
bliss - or should I post an introduction?
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