Himalayan Dhaba

Rating:
Summary: A Real Trip!
Review: A good read -- different from anything I have read before. Danner creates a unique setting with lively descriptions and an interesting global jumble of characters whose viewpoints alternate throughout the story. The bleak realities of surgical trauma and austere landscape are the strengths of the book, in addition to some well-drawn personalities. Its weakenesses are the occasionally sloppy prose that fails to match the appropriate speaking "voice" of an individual character, and what to me was a rather jerky, foreshortened ending that did not do justice to the elegantly bizarre plot and characters. I did find it a fascinating journey of sorts and will add it to the list of independent reading books for my high school World Lit students.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Trip!
Review: A good read -- different from anything I have read before. Danner creates a unique setting with lively descriptions and an interesting global jumble of characters whose viewpoints alternate throughout the story. The bleak realities of surgical trauma and austere landscape are the strengths of the book, in addition to some well-drawn personalities. Its weakenesses are the occasionally sloppy prose that fails to match the appropriate speaking "voice" of an individual character, and what to me was a rather jerky, foreshortened ending that did not do justice to the elegantly bizarre plot and characters. I did find it a fascinating journey of sorts and will add it to the list of independent reading books for my high school World Lit students.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and biting
Review: An easier visit to the Himalayans!
The cyclic and karmic quality of the stories is what grabbed me by the time I finished this book. The story was about time passage and setting just as much as about individual souls and customs. Feeling words detailed environments and inner thoughts of key characters making me feel I was there observing the whole while.
Danner included impressionable interactions between outside forces and human endurance. At the same time, Craig precisely shone light on the uncertain and delicate nature of ourselves proving assumptions and expectations may be our worst enemies.
The book contains strong images you will not forget!

Rating:
Summary: See the world
Review: Craig Danner's Himalayan Dhaba interested me enough that I recommended it to my book club. Danner's description of a small mountain village is very vivid. His characters are equally well drawn. We are intially transported to the mountain via the voice of Dr. Mary, a recent widow. While she seeks solace and healing in a culture that is completely foreign to her we are drawn into a world of poverty, simplicity, religion and conflicting Western values. Mr. Danner's writing is poetic and thought provoking. I enjoyed the book very much, but do wish there were fewer primary characters. At times, it was difficult to distinguish all of them. I look forward to reading his next novel!

Rating:
Summary: Himalayan Dhaba--traveling medicine
Review: Lyrical story of a widowed doctor who travels to the far corner of the world seeking to heal and be healed. Unusual characters and setting. The book can be hard to follow at times--the voices of the main characters blur along with their experiences, and the narrative feels more like a set of short stories than one continuous arc. But there are honest --shocking-- images of the physicality and emotion of human experience.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting Stories Within the Story
Review: This book was suggested to me by a good friend as a worthwhile and enjoyable read. I certainly found the book to be captivating in its details of a wide variety of people, places and events. Danner writes each chapter to stand alone in the telling of his larger story. His descriptions of personal hardships and emotions, in a harsh and backwards land, makes you feel and experience with the characters. The book is different, but very satisfying, and brings all the personal stories together into a "smile-pleasing" conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: On the Edge of My Seat in the Himalayans
Review: Through themes of self-knowledge, redemption, isolation, and healing, Craig Danner successfully interweaves the lives of a disparate cast of characters in his Himalayan setting. The story unfolds through multiple persepectives, which I enjoyed even though each voice was not completely distinct. For much of the novel I was more interested in the fate of Doctor Mary and Amond than the other characaters. Near the end of the novel, however, the voices of the other charcters become stronger as the significance of the Hindu culture becomes more prominent. The miscommunications that occur throughout the novel--largely due to a series of unchecked assumptions on the part of many characaters--drive the plot and shape the outcome of the characters' contact with one another. The similarities between the female chararcters become clear at the end as each finds strength within herself and experiences redemption, creating an ending that seems both satifying and realistic.