"The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes is an audacious piece of writing thatputs the adventure back into reading.
Jamyang Norbu is a writer who dares. He takes two famous fictionalcharacters, one from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, and the other fromRudyard Kipling's Kim, and brings them to life again, by involving them in an intrigue inIndia and Tibet, that is as mysterious and precise as the Mandala itself.
At the same time, the author's deep and passionate involvement and concernfor the Tibetan way of life, its customs, beliefs and the almost mythic splendour of itspast, provides a moral dimension that lifts the story out of the adventure-mystery-travelformat. The evil that mutates through time and circumstance in the figure of SherlockHolmes' old adversary, Dr Moriarty, is linked to the dire battle for survival faced by theTibetan people today.
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The deeper political and philosophical dimension is perfectly balanced byJamyang Norbu's stylish erudition and flair for comic detail. He presents the whole bookas a found manuscript that permits him to display a dazzling array of facts from botany,history, archaeology and mountaineering, including a number of delightful red herringsthat he casually strews along the way.
The language is both quaint and full of a playful allusiveness thatpropels the story on a brisk pace. The tone - urbane, scholarly and witty - may be savouredat its fullest in the footnotes and the glossary, that contains words from no less than 10different languages.
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As Sherlock Holmes himself might say, "It's capital adventure myfriends! Not elementary. Just brilliant!"
Meenakshi Mukherjee
G.J.V. Prasad
Geeta Doctor
