Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
Although Moggach, a well-known TV writer and prolific novelist in her native Britain, has published here before, this book, a bestseller at home last year, is the one that is likely to be her breakout on this side of the water. It is yet another story set in 17th-century Holland involving a real-life artist, Jan van Loos. But whereas such books as Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring concentrate on an artist's work, this is a headlong romantic drama that uses the painting of a portrait simply as a jumping-off point. Van Loos comes to paint Sophia, the pretty young wife of wealthy burger Cornelius Sandvoort, which starts a train of events that will irredeemably change all their lives. Sophia and the artist fall hopelessly in love; the Sandvoorts' servant, Maria, is having a child by a man who, thinking himself betrayed by her, has run off and joined the navy; meanwhile, Cornelius has always longed for a child. Out of these circumstances, the infatuated couple formulate a plot, but one that depends on getting together a great deal of money in a short time; hence, the frenzied speculation in the value of new and rare breeds of tulip that gives the book its title. Moggach puts all this together in a series of brief, breathless chapters-packing in skillfully presented facts, atmosphere and color-each told from a different point of view: even the hapless drunk who brings the whole scheme crashing down around Jan's and Sophia's ears is given his moment in the limelight, and the figure of the elderly, cuckolded lover is for once sympathetically drawn. The Amsterdam of the period is brought almost physically alive, and a wistful postlude looks back at all the romantic anguish from a serene distance. This is popular fiction created at a high pitch of craft and rapid readability.
The Third Eye by Tuesday Lobsang Rampa
This book tells a true story of a Tibetan Lama, born as Tuesday Lobsang Rampa from a wealthy family in Tibet. One day before his 7th birthday his family held a big party to invite fortune-teller who would predict his future, and it was predicted that he was going to a Lama. So off he went to Chakpory Lamastery on his birthday and began his life as a Lama. The book tells about Tibetan Buddhism tradition, reincarnation, how they pray, the food they eat (only buttered tea, tsampa, and sometimes vegetables), and most of all the belief they hold strongly. As a person who hold a different belief to Buddhism I find some things odd but! I believe that every belief has different teachings, whatever it is, we have to pay respect for others belief and shall never ever compare our beliefs to them for there’s only ONE GOD. And only one God it is that Rampa believed too as he put in his book “Banyak juga orang terpelajar yg mencerca kami karena mereka dibutakan oleh kepercayaan mereka sendiri, dan tidak dapat melihat dari sudut pandang yang lain. Beberapa orang bahkan menyebut kami “seperti setan” karena cara2 kami asing bagi mereka. (There are some foreigners who mock us because they’re blinded by their own beliefs and can’t see other’s belief from different views. Some people even called us ‘evil’ because our teachings are queer to them)” and “Tuhan ada, Ada Tertinggi. Apakah menjadi masalah bagaimana kita menyebutNya? Tuhan adalah sebuah kenyataan. (God exists. Is it a problem on how we refer to Him? God is a fact.)” Some things I take as odds are how they put their trust in fortune-telling (Lobsang didn’t afraid doing dangerous things for he believed in fortune-telling that said he’d die old in The Red Land (America)) and how he traveled to ‘other space’ after seeing his Tibetan Gods (they put their gods in black coffins and they were taller than human). But it’s still an interesting thing to read. I don’t take his ability of having ‘the third eye’ as something odd for I think some people are gifted. It’s just the way they ‘open’ his third eye that’s weird. The most surprising part is that he got to meet yeti, animal that is taken as a folk story like the Loch Ness monster. The unique part is when he was involved in the procession of burying a previous incarnation; they refer it as an important Lama who was reincarnated from the previous life. Actually, it was not burying, they cleaned his body, took some of his organs, and polish the entire body with gold for gold means purity for them. Then the body was put in a secret place where all the previous incarnations were also put in there, kinda like basement. And when Rampa was there, he was stunned by a Lama who was put in the basement, and it turned out to be him in his previous life! In the end of the story, he had to leave Tibet (as it had been predicted before) and lived a hard life under Japanese invasion. Overall, this book is a very interesting one for those who want to know about Eastern beliefs. It’s a book worth reading.
