Sutra of the Pearl

 by Lee Kaiser

This is another book I bought on impulse at Chapters.  It is supposed to be by a local author but the bio is very brief.  I think the book is self-published.

At first I didn't think much of the book but by the end I felt that maybe I should read it again.

Page 193 "Do you know a pearl starts as a parasite?  Over time these foul innards inside the oyster release a protective coating around the poison.  That becomes the pearl.  If nature can create the strength and purity of a pearl from such ugliness , why not believe that people can change no matter how far they've strayed..

At first I didn't like the book.  The main character, Julie was a bit of a hysterical, dependent person. The first sentence in the books is "Julia Paglia was a crackerjack of a liar, just like her mother".

The book seemed a bit disjointed at first.  Julia travels the world as a travel writer.  Her goal is to be published in National Geographic.  Julia hates her drug addict mother who is dying of lung cancer.  She believes her mother killed her young brother years ago.  She thinks of turning her mother in to the police.

She goes to India because she found an article that says that Jesus spent some time in India.  She thinks if she can find proof she could get rich and famous.  But when she gets to India she gets obsessed with saving all the diseased dogs she finds in the street.  She frantically tries to save them or at least give them a peaceful death.  

She hears about an underwater city and finally finds a group of people who will take her out in a boat to look at it at night.  The area is in a goverment restricted area, that is why they have to do the dive at night.  She gets some good pix and sends some to National Geographic.  She is shocked to learn that the people who took her out are really terrorists who want to destroy a nuclear plant that is on land near where she was diving, that is why there is a restricted zone.

She develops a relationship one particular Indian man and a few other people.  A friend from Canada also comes to join her.  The authorities eventually find out she was in the restricted area and they put out an arrest warrant for her.  Her friends remove the images from her computer so that should be no evidence against her.  

Her boyfriend is estranged from his brother (one of the terrorists) and his father.  She eventually meets the man's father and likes him.  She can't understand why her boyfriend doesn't get on with him.  The man gives her a book of Buddhist prayers/thoughts. 

She is eventually located and deported.

However, a few years later she sneaks back into India thanks to a back door into India and bribes to officials by her boyfriend. She learns that the father was very poor initially but became rich when he bought some land (from which others were evicted) from some officials who were re-allocating the land.  The father gives her a book and asks her to take it to someone he knew years before.

Disaster stikes when the terrorists take the brakes off a train loaded with fuel.  They think it will careen down a hill and into the nuclear plant but instead it crashes on a curve in a nearby village.  Much of  the village is destroyed and many people are killed or maimed.  The girl, her boyfriend and others, including his father rush to rescue the injured as police say emegency vehicles will not enter the area. The father is shot trying to rescue the injured.

The girl eventually gets the book to the man per her boyfriend's father's instructions.  She finds that the inscription in the book gives the recipient the father's share of the business.  The recipient is one of the people the father wronged years before.

Julia is devastated when she learns her boyfriend is leaving her to marry his mistress in Sweden who is pregnant with his child.  She and the man had planned to marry.  

Finally Julia decides to set out for Nepal to seek out the writings that would confirm Christ spent time in India.  She spends time at a monastery where in return for some help around the monastery, and promising to attend daily meditation, she is allowed access to the monastery's library.  The head monk is an American.  On her last day at the monastery he gives her the writings she is looking for.

She takes the writings or at least a copy and deposits them at the National Geographic office anonymously.

There was a lot going on in this book and a lot to think about -- unintended consequences for eg.  A lot of people did some bad things, the questions arose, can you change once you have done bad things? can you make amends for the wrongs you have done? The author seems to think yes and yes.

I will have to re-read it again to get all the details straight and also get a better understanding of the many complex issues.