The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War

by Christopher Merrill

Overview

Composed in the key of terror, The Tree of the Doves offers an engaging account of Christopher Merrill’s travels to distant parts of the world. From jungle to desert to sea, from cities to ruins, he explores how history is shaped by ceremonies, expeditions, and wars.

He observes the performance of a banned ritual in Malaysia, retraces Saint-John Perse’s epic journey from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar, and tours the Levant in the wake of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Encountering a wide range of people along the way—artists and politicians, soldiers and refugees—Merrill is as attentive to their individuality as he is attuned to the historical, social, and cultural situations in which they find themselves.

In three extended essays, he poses fundamental but nonetheless provocative questions­­—Where do we come from? Where are we going? What shall we do?—which lead him to conclude that the changes we are witnessing now presage the end of one order and the creation of another.

Lively and insightful, empathetic and illuminating, The Tree of the Doves is an important book, as contemporary as it is timeless.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571313058
Publisher:	Milkweed Editions
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.72(h) x 1.08(d)

Editorial Reviews

Merrill (Things of the Hidden God) harnesses his travels into a thoughtful first-person account that unfortunately gets bogged down where it should soar. In three linked essays, Merrill meditates on the effects of terror upon international politics, religion, and society—without stopping to tirade. He travels through Malaysia to watch an illegal shamanistic healing ritual, the main puteri; he then follows the path of poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse’s 1921 expedition from Beijing to Ulan Bator as a frame through which to examine modern China; and lastly, in 2007, Merrill makes his way through the Middle East’s Levant following the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The mongrel work of lamentation, reportage, and memoir are unified by the author’s keen eye and voice—he’s a veteran, open-minded traveler looking everywhere for answers, posing every question with a willingness to dig deep into darker places. The current director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Merrill is a “writer’s writer”: he spins sentences made of gold, makes essayistic moves like Montaigne—so it’s surprising that overall, his book lacks liveliness, and the density of prose and lack of narrative direction can make the reading a slog. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

A celebrated poet, essayist and newly appointed (by President Obama) member of the National Council on the Humanities eloquently considers the global impact of our "Age of Terror."

Merrill's (Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, 2005, etc.) treatise explores the nature of terror, its place in the post-9/11 world and how it unites and galvanizes those in the throes of it. His trio of meditative essays is derived from exotic journeys to Malaysia, China and the Dead Sea, as well as from a panoramic view of war-torn Syria atop the plateau of the Golan Heights while pondering "the consequences of living in fear." The setting for his first essay is the muggy jungles of Kelantan in Malaysia, where Merrill observed the performance of a now-forbidden spirit-raising healing ritual presided over by a shaman to rid a village girl of her maladies. Seated with a tour guide on a wooden plank just beyond the stage, he takes stock of the state of faith, the nation and the aftermath of the turmoil of 9/11. A wandering expedition partially retracing the Beijing sojourn 19th-century poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse finds Merrill transfixed by Chinese history; he recounts a visit to a Zen Buddhist poet in Maui where he pensively tapped into the nature of human suffering after a week-long bout of stomach flu. The final section details the writer's adventures visiting the Middle East's Levant territory, where the American military occupation of Iraq still evokes local scorn. The author's poetic background is evident in many lushly descriptive passages, and he clearly, rationally articulates his astute worldview. The essays can be hyperactively circuitous, however, with frequent digressions into the allegorical and the anecdotal. Terror, Merrill posits, is a fact of life, and his philosophically acute amalgam of religious, historical and political reflections will surely incite discussion and lively debate.

A unique travelogue boosted by wonderfully creative thinking with a political slant.

Kirkus Reviews