The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari....

[fajrdrako]

I got this book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma, from the library and made notes on it. Sharma was one of the speakers at that lecture-session I went to featuring Deepak Chopra. Sharma's speaking style had impressed me. So had his advice about life.

His book impressed me somewhat less than his talk. This isn't to say the book isn't good, depending how you define the word; it has some very good and wise advice, clearly set out in both parable and point form. Nothing new, but all stated in a good introductory way and made very clear and approachable.

Seen as a story, the writing style was terrible. But he calls it a fable, so he can get away with it. It reminded me of The Celestine Prophecy in that the writing was clumsy, stilted and simplistic, but the information within it was excellent.

Worse, Sharma has some annoying stylistic devices, like having the narrator/protagonist freqnetly say things like, "I never thought about self-improvement before" and "I could never imagine myself meditating." Is this just to make the reader feel proud that he has thought about these things? Or not to feel inferior if he hasn't? Sharma has the wise character saying, "You can see this is true because you see how great my life is," and the reader thinks, "Yeah, right, you're just a character in a book, where's the truth in that? We have to take your word for it." I remember B.F. Skinner did the same thing in Walden Two. Drove me nuts. But this book is far better than Walden Two.

Sharma even says things that aren't true, such as that you can make a baby believe a sunny day is depressing if you teach him it is. Uh-uh. If we were so suggestible as to always believe what our parents told us, it would be a very different world. Parents can't change anyone's perceptions by telling them lies. What you would have is a confused kid, not one who meekly believed what his parents said.

Sharma lives in Toronto and is, I believe, Canadian, but he did everything he could to make this book sound as American as possible. Maybe he's an immigrant from the U.S.

But aside from all this, the recipe for living in the book is very good indeed - the basis of yoga philosophy. I plan to use its suggestions. Some of them I am already using. For all the clumsiness of presentation, the substance of the book is superb.

I have Sharma's next book, which was given to me for my birthday. I wonder how it will compare.