The Painted Alphabet - Softcover

Darling, Diana

3.85

175 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9625936432 ISBN 13: 9789625936437

Publisher: Tuttle Pub, 2001

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Based on a Balinese epic poem, The Painted Alphabet is a tale of magic, depravity, spiritual ambition and love. Hailed by the New Yorker as "dazzling little gem of a novel," Diana Darling's novel follows the adventures of two Balinese brothers, Siladri and Made Kerti who make very different choices in life. Siladri, driven to find an explanation for his era's evil, seeks the teaching of a holy man. Made Kerti stays home. In the course of their adventures, good and evil clash all around them, identities are exchanged, lost and found, and modern and traditional cultures collide.

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About the Author:

Diana Darling has lived in Bali for more than ten years and speaks the language fluently. She is an American born sculptor who trained in Paris and Italy.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Darling, an American sculptor and ten-year resident of Bali, debuts with a charming, sometimes exquisitely detailed novel based on a Balinese Hindu epic. Villager Siladri, dismayed by the hellishness of his era, leaves home in order to study with a holy man. He swaps babies with his brother, leaving his own son behind, and sets out for the mountains with his wife and niece Kusuma Sari. But Siladri's wife dies just before arrival; the baby is raised by two foster-mothers- -a lioness and a doe; and Siladri himself becomes his teacher's spiritual heir. In the meantime, the monstrous Klinyar--conceived in a desecrated temple--finds her own foster-mother: Dayu Datu, a powerful witch. When Siladri and his family are threatened by Dayu Datu, Klinyar, and a lascivious ne'er-do-well, he and Kusuma Sari must question moral absolutes: Is it right to use violence and sorcery against their enemies? In maintaining their own purity can they redeem others? Reinforcing the timelessness of myth, Darling has taken the ancient plot and let the characters play out their Good vs. Evil destinies in the contemporary world: traditional ways coexist with tourists and cold beer; the distracted witch, seeking a professional environment, creates a crack house and a Soviet airport lounge. Throughout, Darling turns archetypes into appealing human characters; her Bali is seductive--full of love, fragrance, tinkling bells, evocative descriptions of weather, geography, and religious rites. Exemplary translation of mythic material into fiction attuned to contemporary taste. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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