The Book of Strangers - Softcover

Dallas, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887069916 ISBN 13: 9780887069918

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1988

Synopsis

Sometime in the future the head librarian at a great center of learning suddenly disappears, leaving behind a journal that describes his weariness with a world "where people teach but know nothing, where the sentences flow on endlessly but lead nowhere." His successor in the post becomes more and more intrigued by the vanished man's fate, until a series of mysterious clues lead him on a journey both inward and outward, to a world that begins where language ends. Within a matter of weeks he finds himself in the company of powerful dervishes, God-intoxicated nomads whose eyes blaze with love, and ragged beggars with the smile of the Pure One. These men, the followers of an enlightened Shaykh, speak little, but simply to be in their company fills him with ecstasy and knowledge.

About this title

Review:

Alan Watts said of Ian Dallas that, "He has--as is very rare with mystical writers--given a vision of God that, instead of summoning with duty, allures with delight."

About this edition

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0887069916
• ISBN 13: 9780887069918
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 156