The Half Known Life

August 1, 2022

Noted for more than a dozen books on cross-cultural themes, plus essays and book reviews that have appeared in over 250 periodicals worldwide, Iyer here focuses on the concept of paradise: what it means in different cultures, to different people, and whether it can be claimed on Earth.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 7, 2022
Essayist Iyer (A Beginner’s Guide to Japan) visits regions of religious import in this immersive and profound survey of earthly paradises. “I’d begun to wonder what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict—and whether the very search for it might not simply aggravate our differences,” Iyer writes, detailing his travels to Ethiopia, India, Iran, and Sri Lanka and discussing how people there understand the concept of “paradise.” He begins in Iran, the “world’s largest theocracy,” and visits the Imam Reza shrine, finding in the “competing visions of paradise” that play out there affirmation of Persian poet Rumi’s exhortation to seek a personal heaven within oneself. In Sri Lanka, he visits Adam’s Peak—which Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus claim holds special significance—but remarks that the political violence in the country undercuts its idyllic pretenses and the “idea of paradise seemed... to move people to be not kinder but more reckless.” Meditating on his conversations with his friend the Dalai Lama, Iyer decides to “just let life come to me in all its happy confusion and find the holiness in that.” Iyer remains a cultural critic par excellence, matching penetrating insights with some of the most transportive prose around. This further burnishes Iyer’s reputation as one of the best travel writers out there.

Starred review from December 1, 2022
The latest chapter in Iyer's (A Beginner's Guide to Japan, 2019) profound, ongoing conversation with the world, a numinous blend of deeply attentive travel writing, history, memoir, and reflection, chronicles his piquant quest for paradise, a concept rife with paradox. He begins in Iran, the source of "both our word for paradise and some of our most soulful images of it" and a "treasure house of riddles." Drawn to holy sites, seeking serenity, and finding chaos and irony, Iyer chronicles moments transcendent and terrifying, conveying the atmosphere and energy of each place and situation, keenly attuned to the press of the past. He is seized by the "holy turbulence" in Jerusalem, gripped by the rarefied beauty and terror of war-shackled Kashmir, and left "rattled and unsettled" by riven and battered Sri Lanka. His low-key pilgrimage to Van Morrison sites in Belfast stands in stark contrast to his plunge into the fiery mysteries of Varanasi on the sacred Ganges. Immersions in Melville (the title's source) and Dickinson flow into the peace and solace he finds in a Buddhist temple settlement on a mountain in Japan, a "contained intensity" that infuses his warm-hearted prose with its graceful precision and incantatory lyricism. "Paradise, in short," Iyer finds, "is regained by finding the wonder within the moment." There is much wonder here.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2022
The latest chapter in Iyer's (A Beginner's Guide to Japan, 2019) profound, ongoing conversation with the world, a numinous blend of deeply attentive travel writing, history, memoir, and reflection, chronicles his piquant quest for paradise, a concept rife with paradox. He begins in Iran, the source of "both our word for paradise and some of our most soulful images of it" and a "treasure house of riddles." Drawn to holy sites, seeking serenity, and finding chaos and irony, Iyer chronicles moments transcendent and terrifying, conveying the atmosphere and energy of each place and situation, keenly attuned to the press of the past. He is seized by the "holy turbulence" in Jerusalem, gripped by the rarefied beauty and terror of war-shackled Kashmir, and left "rattled and unsettled" by riven and battered Sri Lanka. His low-key pilgrimage to Van Morrison sites in Belfast stands in stark contrast to his plunge into the fiery mysteries of Varanasi on the sacred Ganges. Immersions in Melville (the title's source) and Dickinson flow into the peace and solace he finds in a Buddhist temple settlement on a mountain in Japan, a "contained intensity" that infuses his warm-hearted prose with its graceful precision and incantatory lyricism. "Paradise, in short," Iyer finds, "is regained by finding the wonder within the moment." There is much wonder here.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 15, 2022
An acclaimed travel writer sets out on a journey to an elusive destination: paradise. Iyer has written many beloved books on his expeditions around the world, and he has a gift for capturing the texture and cadence of a place and its people. His latest, which he sees as something of a capstone to his life's work, is more than a travel memoir. He explores the idea of paradise held in different cultures and religions, making the text a spiritual journey rather than an itinerary, a pilgrimage to a semi-imagined place "where so many of our possibilities lie." The author begins in Iran, a country caught between the ambitions of its theocratic rulers to return to an earlier time and the desires of its people to build a faith and society suitable for the 21st century. Not for the only time in this book, Iyer finds that he has to discard his preconceptions if he is to make sense of the reality he finds. The search for paradise often intersects with real-world conflict, and the author was stunned by the ethnic violence that has torn apart the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. The irony is that the center of the island is an oasis of Buddhist calm, untouched by the ocean of warfare. In Jerusalem, Iyer discovered "a holy turbulence" of competing beliefs, but somehow people have learned to live with the chaos. Perhaps, then, heaven can only be found after death? His visit to Japanese shrines points that way, but Iyer finds the idea rather cold. He does not reach a definitive conclusion, but he begins to accept that the search for peace leads to a place within. "I decided that I would no longer seek out holy places in [a] city of temples," he writes near the end. "I would just let life come to me in all its happy confusion and find the holiness in that." Amen. With keen observation and beautiful language, Iyer shows us the essential truths of places, people, and ideas.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2022

Essayist and novelist Iyer (The Man Within My Head) presents this thoughtful exploration of the concepts of paradise, and whether anything resembling it can be found in the earthly realm. His musings wander from his childhood home in Santa Barbara and his experiences in a British boarding school to travels in adulthood to such disparate destinations as Iran, North Korea, Jerusalem, and Northern Ireland. Iyer's careful commentary is centered on the famous quote by Herman Melville regarding "the horrors of the half-known life." Yet Iyer seems to readily acknowledge that even visiting a myriad of locations and exploring the ideologies that surround them cannot grant any one person more than a cursory understanding of the impacts of religion and culture on a person's worldview. VERDICT While the premise and the prose seem a bit meandering at times, Iyer's latest book is a joyful travelogue that many readers will likely enjoy.--Jennifer Moore

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.