The Monk who was not much of a storyteller

September 10th, 2006 admin Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

The much acclaimed book, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin S. Sharma, came to my attention when my wife’s cousin and my Uncle, both, recommended it. I probably raised my hopes too much because upon reading half the book, I recognized a sense of disappointment with myself. I had expected this book to be mesmerizing tale, a story of a monk revealing a hard-earned but deceptively simple viewpoint on how to live. With so many books that try to approach this subject, I had not heard much about the others. I was, therefore, expecting this book to be truly original.I was disappointed by several aspects of the book. Firstly, it is not a story. The lessons are not interpreted by the experiences of the characters as they face life, but rather, the lessons are handed down to the reader on a platter, more like any other self-help book. The book starts off as a story, but within a few quick pages settles into a conversation between a teacher and a student. A few pages further and the conversation shrinks to mainly a monologue by the teacher, with the student unfailingly accepting all the lessons, and obediently egging the teacher to go on. If this was how the book was to be, I do not see the pretense of attempting a story. It would have been to the benefit of the reader if the book were written in the form of a sermon, like most self-help books are.

Second reason for my feeling let down was the writing style. I read on the back cover that Robin Sharma is an electrifying speaker. I listened to some of his speeches on his website and I agree that he speaks very well. He is not, however, and electrifying author. The book, a conversation as it is, comes across as artificial. Two people speaking like a perfect teacher and a perfect student. Speech gliding between realistic wisecracks and unbelievably long-winded paragraphs of complex, flowery constructions and quotations quoted and embraced with unerring finality, push the characters, hurriedly created as they are, further away from a reader. The writing, on top of being unbelievable as speech, is itself quite weak. The book gives us a sense of being written hurriedly to meet a deadline. The style is clearly that of a PowerPoint presentation with bulleted highlights that form the skeleton of the book. Exploration of each of these bulleted and sub-bulleted lists adds the bulk. The exploration, however, is quite shallow and one-dimensional. What I mean by shallow is that the meaning of a bulleted item is explored in an obvious, rather redundant and repetitive way. It often reduces to “Do X. Doing X will improve your life in the following ways…” What I mean by one-dimensional is that the various bullets and sub-bullets that make up the chapters and sections of the chapters, are left disjoint. The only attempt to tie them together is of the type, “Do X and Y and Z all together.” The book has been written not for the really interested, but rather for those accustomed to an executive-summary style of presentations. Quick and to the point. It is, in some sense, a medicine the patient wants rather than the one the patient needs.

Another reason I was a little taken aback at least at the beginning of the book, was that the author relies on a stereotyped image of sages and monasteries in India that matches the western audience’s existing ideas on the topic. So the convenience of unreachable, eternally blissful, centenarian sages living in huts made of flowers in the lap of an unexplored valley in the heavenly Himalayas makes the lessons so much more authentic? I think it takes away from a lesson it’s believability. It dilutes an otherwise perfect thought.

In attempting to infuse authenticity to the teachings by letting these perfect sages be the originators of the thoughts presented in the book, the author’s lack of imagination reflects poorly on these actualized beings. The author comes up with a supposedly symbolic story of a Sumo wrestler and his adventures in a garden. The imagery is so wild and the associations between the symbols and the teachings so hard to understand, let alone remember, that the only reason I can think of for such imagery is to allow memorization by incredulity. The story is so feebly constructed that the audacity of actually publishing it and going with it as the theme, makes it stand out. Think of it like that irritating TV ad which is so irritating that you cannot forget it. On top of this, the author seems to have plagiarized some stories. One is Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant”, which is related as an ancient Indian tale towards the end of chapter 9. The others – like the protagonist pouring tea into a cup until the cup overflows on to the saucer, on to the table, and eventually, and unnecessarily, on to the Persian rug or the one where a child starts building a table for his parents so they can sit separately during dinner time just like his grandmother is being asked to today – I have read these stories before. Maybe they are old enough to be used as your own, without any copyright issues. But still, the lack of imagination disappointed me.

Although I have been pointing out the weaknesses of the book so far, there are some strengths. The most important strength of course is that the main ideas presented are, all said and done, good. The ideas come from various sources and different times. The book serves therefore as a collection of some sensible thoughts. The reader has to be careful to fish for these great thoughts hidden under the unimaginative, artificial, hurried, bulleted writing style and ponder upon those. Another positive I recall was seeing suggestions for other books the reader may read. The suggested readings included – “The Stories of My Experiments with Truth” by M. K. Gandhi, “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse and writings of Ben Franklin, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. I have read “Siddhartha” and think it was a thought provoking read.

I must add that I did complete reading the book and my current opinion about the book is more forgiving than the one I had after my first session with the book. Partly, the reason was I adjusted to the tone and style of the book when I picked it up again and overcame my self-imposed expectations from the book. Partly the reason was that the main ideas in the book are good. It was the presentation of the ideas that was the issue I still had at the end of the read.