Reviewer Andrea Coventry: Andrea is a Montessori child - turned educator. An avid reader and writer, she is published on several websites. Click Here to find a listing of Andrea's sites where you can find many of her writing contributions.
Author: Stephen Schettini
Publisher: Green Leaf
Book Group Press
ISBN: 978-1-60832-005-9
Click Here To Purchase The Novice: Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit, and What I Learned
The
Novice: Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit & What I
Learned by Stephen Schettini is a well-written memoir that
almost seems like a version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but
overseas, and with a more religious theme.
Schettini's
religious road began at a young age, when he was attending a Catholic
school. Even then, he was questioning the philosophy of
Christianity, and was able to expose some of the hypocrisy contained
within, and the problem of rote memorization of doctrine without
thinking of how to apply it to daily situations.
When a little
older, at the age of 11, he developed a knack for shoplifting various
items from stores. At his preparatory school, he was considered
to be lazy, untidy, careless, and erratic. Being a teenager of the
60s, he grew his hair long, listened to Bob Dylan and the Beatles,
drank a lot, and had deep discussions about what really
mattered.
When someone finally gave him a copy of the I
Ching for his 21st birthday, the foundation was laid for a
life-changing trip to Asia, in search of the lesser known Eastern
philosophies, usually ignored by those in the West.
Leaving
Gloucester to Dover, then continuing to hitchhike across Turkey,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, counting on the I Ching to help him make his
decisions. Along the way, he tries different drugs that don't
agree with him, meets many people who do, and has amazing
black-and-white photographs to document the places. He
describes these people and places, so often almost demonized on the
recent news, in a vivid fashion that puts you right there with him.
The behaviors of the people seem to be on par with other memoirs of
the area, such as Greg Mortensen's Three Cups of
Tea.
Following an almost fatal illness, Schettini
finally makes his way to India and Tibet, and is inducted into the
practices of Buddhism. He finds a new peace in his new perspective,
and order in his previously cluttered mind and manners. He then
spends the majority of the next couple of decades as a leader and
instructor, before finally deciding to leave to apply what he has
learned elsewhere.
This memoir is well-written and easy to
read. It is filled with a great deal of honesty, which is the
best way to portray emotion in its purest form. It is
inspirational, as the reader cannot help but question her own ideals
in comparison to Schettini's. And it's simply a good story.
Click Here To Purchase The Novice: Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit, and What I Learned