Word: salzman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Mark Salzman...
...Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman's new adventure novel about life in communist China, is a perfect book for light reading, whether one is interested in China or not. Although the book does not give great insight into Chinese culture, it does raise thought-provoking issues about the lives and hopes of the citizens of China...
Four years ago, Mark Salzman made an enviable debut as a writer. Iron and Silk was an account of the two years he spent in Hunan teaching English to Chinese medical students. A young man's book, it was modest and graceful and, most important, managed to reflect how the author's own openness and charm brought out the candor in the reserved Chinese people he encountered...
...Salzman made a movie of his book, due out next month, and has now written his first novel, also with a Chinese theme. It would be good to report that he has managed another conjuring act, but that is not quite true. The Laughing Sutra is very promising and often funny. But the author opts for the picaresque, and nowadays it's a tough act to bring off because ordinary headlines make tall tales look tame...
...Salzman is skilled at using his meandering tale to comment on such varied ; matters as the Cultural Revolution, the Hong Kong drug trade, American amusement parks and the idiocies of slob art in West Coast galleries. But the subjects -- the earnest seeker and his wizardly mentor, an old dormant civilization and a young bombastic one -- are still stereotypes, no matter how lovingly drawn...