The Writing of Pico Iyer: The Open Road and The Global Soul
Knopf (2008), Vintage (2000)
This summer I finished two books by Pico Iyer. The first was his newest: “The Open Road” about the fourteenth, currently-exiled Dalai Lama, and the second was an older book called “The Global Soul.” I have been aware of Iyer since his first book “Video Night in Kathmandu” was published about twenty years ago. I never read that but two decades later it’s jumped to the top of my list.
Pico is a something of a mongrel and uber worldtraveler. He is an Englishman of East Indian descent who splits his time between California and Japan (where his partner and her children are from). Perhaps this multiplicity lies at the core of his fascination with globalization, identity and travel.
I’ve had a mixture of trepidation and curiosity when it comes to Pico, because his work can be intriguing and infuriating. About two years ago I first picked up “The Global Soul” and I made it part way through, stumbling in my earnest attempts to ‘get into it.’ I gave up at least twice around the middle of the book in the chapter on Toronto (‘The Multiculture’). Finally I made it through, and the reward was satisfying.
In the first chapter, “The Burning House,” Pico relates the story of a devastating fire that swept through his California neighbourhood and this entry presents one of the best-written and concise elements of “The G.S.”. Where the book stumbles is in subsequent chapters such as “The Airport” where Iyer seems more interested in a process of listing and cataloguing every possible cultural variance and nuance to the detriment of establishing solid ideas and themes. Here is an excerpt from the “Burning House” which hints at some of the chaotic style to follow:
“Everywhere is so made up of everywhere else–a polycentric anagram–that I hardly notice I’m sitting in a Parisian café just outside Chinatown (in San Francisco), talking to a Mexican-American friend about biculturalism when a Haitian woman stops off to congratulate him on a piece he’s just delivered on TV about St. Patrick’s day. “I know all about those Irish nuns,” she says, in a thick patois, as we sip our Earl Grey tea near signs that say city of hong kong and empress of China.”
If you can get past this name-drop overload, his writing, especially about Toronto and the Atlanta Olympics, is really quite stunning. Visiting the city as a participant in the International Festival of Authors he champions Toronto as a barometer of the future of an urban planet, praising the city’s superstar arts scene and cultural mix. The subsequent chapter finds Iyer disappointed with Atlanta’s brand of crassly commercial globalization while covering the 1996 Olympics.
While “The Global Soul” is fascinating but flawed, “The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama,” is a treat and is broken sensibly into three sections: “In Public”, “In Private” and “In Practice.” The book is a product of Pico’s insider access to the Dalai Lama that was founded on his father’s long-time friendship. This solid foundation for “The Open Road” was further bolstered by his own decades of work as a journalist covering Tibet and the Far East.
Iyer is a writer who is fascinated by the convergence of politics, globalism and spirituality. The Dalai Lama is an extremely pragmatic person who is adept at exploiting the media in this new era of global communications. Perfect match. The “Global Soul” style evocation of Llasa in the exiled leader’s home away from home in Dharamsala, northern India is fascinating—a mix of cyber cafes and youthful hippies mingling in the mountains with Buddhist monks—and provides hope that the example of Tibetan activism might yet budge China and lead the way for reform and a more enlightened treatment of endangered cultures and people around the world.
This philosophical book has its moments of abstraction, forcing one to pause and meditate on Iyer’s meaning and the Tibetan leader’s message, but overall is a fairly straightforward read. The Dalai Lama is revealed as a complex paradoxical man; he is a media-savvy religious leader from an impoverished isolated country who warns against religious dogma, who champions the opportunities presented in the global age for open dialogue, and struggles to remain optimistic while China remakes Tibet as part shopping mall, part museum. There is a readable yet sophisticated book that soars where “The Global Soul” sprawled. It excels because it focuses smartly on the Tibetan leader’s life and illuminates his struggle to balance the personal with the political.
