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Sex ist verboten
Sex ist im Dasgupta Institut verboten. Was also macht die unglaublich attraktive Beth Marriot hier? Warum verbringt eine junge Frau, deren unwiderstehliche Vitalität und selbstbewusstes Ego einst auf Eroberung und Ruhm aus waren, jetzt einen Monat nach dem anderen als Helferin im vegetarischen Restaurant eines puristischen Buddhisten-Retreats? Beth bekämpft Dämonen. Eine Folge von katastrophalen Ereignissen hat alle ihre Hoffnungen auf Glück unterminiert. Aus diesem Trauma gibt es für sie nur einen Ausweg: die asketische Strenge einer Gemeinschaft, in der man um vier Uhr morgens geweckt wird, keinen Augenkontakt mit anderen haben, geschweige denn mit ihnen sprechen darf und in der Frauen und Männer streng getrennt sind. Aber Neugier stirbt zuletzt. Als Beth über ein Tagebuch stolpert, muss sie es lesen und fängt an, den Mann zu beobachten, dem es gehört. Und je mehr sie sich nach der Reinheit der schweigenden Priesterin des Retreats sehnt, desto mehr begehrt sie die Priesterin selbst. Sex ist verboten in seinem neuen Roman konfrontiert Tim Parks westlichen Individualismus mit dem buddhistischen Credo, dass das, was wir Selbst nennen, eine unwirkliche Fantasie ist.
334 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
10 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
About the author
Tim Parks
121 books585 followersBorn in Manchester in 1954, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since, raising a family of three children. He has written fourteen novels including Europa (shortlisted for the Booker prize), Destiny, Cleaver, and most recently In Extremis.
During the nineties he wrote two, personal and highly popular accounts of his life in northern Italy, Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education. These were complemented in 2002 by A Season with Verona, a grand overview of Italian life as seen through the passion of football. Other non-fiction works include a history of the Medici bank in 15th century Florence, Medici Money and a memoir on health, illness and meditation, Teach Us to Sit Still. In 2013 Tim published his most recent non-fiction work on Italy, Italian Ways, on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo.
Aside from his own writing, Tim has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Machiavelli and Leopardi; his critical book, Translating Style is considered a classic in its field. He is presently working on a translation of Cesare Pavese's masterpiece, The Moon and the Bonfires.
A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, his many essays are collected in Hell and Back, The Fighter, A Literary Tour of Italy, and Life and Work.
Over the last five years he has been publishing a series of blogs on writing, reading, translation and the like in the New York Review online. These have recently been collected in Where I am Reading From and Pen in Hand.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
February 20, 2022
So far I've found Parks' books set in Italy, whether memoir or (theoretically) fiction, far superior to his other novels, this being the second I've read of that ilk.
You will learn something about mediation retreats, and if you haven't already figured out not to go there, maybe you should read the book.
You will learn something about mediation retreats, and if you haven't already figured out not to go there, maybe you should read the book.
April 6, 2018
It is no secret that Tim Parks has a keen interest in the work of cybernetician Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). He has written several journalistic contributions on Bateson’s work and one of the protagonists in Parks' Dreams Of Rivers And Seas was modelled on the British-American polymath.
It looks like also the present novel explores Batesonian themes. The book’s main character is a young woman, Beth Marriot, who has ended up in an existential quandary. Throughout the book we are told - through her inner monologue - that the difficult choice she faces is essentially one between marrying a man whom she doesn’t wholeheartedly love but who worships her, and pursuing a relationship with a married man whom she is deeply attached to but who doesn’t really love her. This dilemma has the shape of a ‘double bind’, a psychological mechanism that was first identified and codified by Bateson and his colleagues. A double bind is a dilemma that cannot be resolved or opted out from. Whatever choice is made, it will always be wrong. Beth has tried to extricate herself from the situation through reckless behavior, with traumatic consequences.
However the dilemma that emerges from her romantic attachments is embedded in another double bind that centers on the fraught relationship between Beth’s parents. For the longest time, Beth had been torn between her filial commitments and her desire to extricate herself from that wearisome context. At the very end of the book she learns that her father has finally decided, after 31 years of conflictual marriage, to leave his wife. Here the double bind finally dissolves for Beth: “I could go home, this evening, and I could leave home, maybe tomorrow. Instead of having to live there to keep them on good terms and not being able to live there because they were never on good terms.”
In his work Bateson explored how animals and humans might ‘use’ these double binds as a springboard for a learning process. In one of his papers, Bateson formulates the question as follows: “Under what circumstances will an organism put itself into a position of painful double bind, gratuitously? Could such a creature be urged on to some dim conception that at the far end of such a disciplinary adventure (…) there might be some ‘spiritual’ or ‘hedonic’ reward?’” Bateson thought that this learning process would take the shape of a process of ‘adaptation’, understood as the sequential transcending of double binds at progressively higher logical levels. But as this process would be unidirectional, i.e. there would be no way to resubmit to lower-level double binds, this process could also be seen as process of addiction.
In the novel Parks explores the potential of vipassana meditation as a strategy to tackle these dilemmas. It is, for outsiders, an extreme practice to gain insight in the fundamental, impermanent nature of ourselves and the world we live in. Parks has first-hand experience of it, as narrated in his book Teach Us to Sit Still. One could see this sort of meditation as a way to short-circuit the said learning process at the logically highest possible level. The true Buddhist would have developed an ‘addiction’ to a worldview in which all double binds dissolve as ephemeral. But once that level of insight was gained, there would be no way back. The practice of meditation is also a radical manifestation of the quintessentially Batesonian ethos of non-interventionism. Based on his insights from cybernetics, Bateson was convinced that our modernist tendency to meddle with systems only created more and possibly catastrophic problems. Art, play, dreams and religious experiences (for instance cultivated by a meditation practice) were fields of human endeavor that could undercut our fatal impulse to control.
To learn how Beth handles the meditation practice and what it eventually means to her, you will have to read the book. But it is a testimonial to Parks’ considerable writerly gifts that he is able to narrate these serious matters in the form of an endearing blue comedy (hence the explicit reference to sex in the book’s title). Although I second the opinion of many readers that the story loses some steam in the latter half of the book. All in all a worthwhile addition to Tim Parks’ eccentric portfolio of novels.
It looks like also the present novel explores Batesonian themes. The book’s main character is a young woman, Beth Marriot, who has ended up in an existential quandary. Throughout the book we are told - through her inner monologue - that the difficult choice she faces is essentially one between marrying a man whom she doesn’t wholeheartedly love but who worships her, and pursuing a relationship with a married man whom she is deeply attached to but who doesn’t really love her. This dilemma has the shape of a ‘double bind’, a psychological mechanism that was first identified and codified by Bateson and his colleagues. A double bind is a dilemma that cannot be resolved or opted out from. Whatever choice is made, it will always be wrong. Beth has tried to extricate herself from the situation through reckless behavior, with traumatic consequences.
However the dilemma that emerges from her romantic attachments is embedded in another double bind that centers on the fraught relationship between Beth’s parents. For the longest time, Beth had been torn between her filial commitments and her desire to extricate herself from that wearisome context. At the very end of the book she learns that her father has finally decided, after 31 years of conflictual marriage, to leave his wife. Here the double bind finally dissolves for Beth: “I could go home, this evening, and I could leave home, maybe tomorrow. Instead of having to live there to keep them on good terms and not being able to live there because they were never on good terms.”
In his work Bateson explored how animals and humans might ‘use’ these double binds as a springboard for a learning process. In one of his papers, Bateson formulates the question as follows: “Under what circumstances will an organism put itself into a position of painful double bind, gratuitously? Could such a creature be urged on to some dim conception that at the far end of such a disciplinary adventure (…) there might be some ‘spiritual’ or ‘hedonic’ reward?’” Bateson thought that this learning process would take the shape of a process of ‘adaptation’, understood as the sequential transcending of double binds at progressively higher logical levels. But as this process would be unidirectional, i.e. there would be no way to resubmit to lower-level double binds, this process could also be seen as process of addiction.
In the novel Parks explores the potential of vipassana meditation as a strategy to tackle these dilemmas. It is, for outsiders, an extreme practice to gain insight in the fundamental, impermanent nature of ourselves and the world we live in. Parks has first-hand experience of it, as narrated in his book Teach Us to Sit Still. One could see this sort of meditation as a way to short-circuit the said learning process at the logically highest possible level. The true Buddhist would have developed an ‘addiction’ to a worldview in which all double binds dissolve as ephemeral. But once that level of insight was gained, there would be no way back. The practice of meditation is also a radical manifestation of the quintessentially Batesonian ethos of non-interventionism. Based on his insights from cybernetics, Bateson was convinced that our modernist tendency to meddle with systems only created more and possibly catastrophic problems. Art, play, dreams and religious experiences (for instance cultivated by a meditation practice) were fields of human endeavor that could undercut our fatal impulse to control.
To learn how Beth handles the meditation practice and what it eventually means to her, you will have to read the book. But it is a testimonial to Parks’ considerable writerly gifts that he is able to narrate these serious matters in the form of an endearing blue comedy (hence the explicit reference to sex in the book’s title). Although I second the opinion of many readers that the story loses some steam in the latter half of the book. All in all a worthwhile addition to Tim Parks’ eccentric portfolio of novels.
January 14, 2014
Okay, anyone who has ever done a Vipassana meditation retreat (or "course" as they're called in their vernacular) in the Goenka tradition should read this book. I would be very surprised if its author, Tim Parks, had not ever done a retreat -- or indeed perhaps even offered service as a kitchen server -- so spot on is his description of the "course," the experience of retreat participants as well as the service culture there.
His heroine, Beth Marriot, is a force of nature, and exhibits the push and pull most practitioners are familiar with. More dramatic than most, perhaps, but still, her narration of what she experiences during the retreat -- as both a meditator and server -- echo the universal dynamic most of us yogis experience.
Though the actual time-span of this novel takes place over the course of a ten-day retreat, through Beth's monologue (much of it in a frantically paced stream-of-consciousness flow familiar to anyone who has sat a silent retreat) we learn about her/story replete with sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Oh, and sex. And betrayal. And guilt.
At times incredibly poignant, this book also had me laughing out loud. So, read it. Or better yet, go on one of these retreats AND then read it!
His heroine, Beth Marriot, is a force of nature, and exhibits the push and pull most practitioners are familiar with. More dramatic than most, perhaps, but still, her narration of what she experiences during the retreat -- as both a meditator and server -- echo the universal dynamic most of us yogis experience.
Though the actual time-span of this novel takes place over the course of a ten-day retreat, through Beth's monologue (much of it in a frantically paced stream-of-consciousness flow familiar to anyone who has sat a silent retreat) we learn about her/story replete with sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Oh, and sex. And betrayal. And guilt.
At times incredibly poignant, this book also had me laughing out loud. So, read it. Or better yet, go on one of these retreats AND then read it!
August 21, 2015
Tim Parks’s take on Buddhist meditation is rather like the experience itself: slow, disorienting, even uncomfortable in the early going – after all, who can sit absolutely still, cross-legged, for an entire hour? By the end, however, you haven’t necessarily solved any of your problems, but you have learned meditation techniques – along with finding detachment from the world, and even pain – that can serve you throughout your life. With practice.
That may be the deceptively simple moral of the story, but the book itself must stand or fall on the stream of consciousness of its fascinating and contradictory main character, twentysomething Beth Marriot. Beth’s life is a mess, which is why she has spent the last nine months as a server at the Dusgupta Institute in England. She has a perfectly nice boyfriend she doesn’t love, a married lover who doesn’t love her enough, a career as a singer with too much alcohol and sex, and massive guilt over an accidental death. But Beth is also, in Parks’s description, a hottie with curly hair, gorgeous figure, and “irresistible hazel eyes.”
In her despair, Beth seeks refuge in the comforting routines of cooking for the hundred fifty “meditators” at Dasgupta, and in her efforts to seek enlightenment through the disciplines of Buddhism. It’s slog at first – for her and the reader – but the story gains a slow momentum, especially as Beth grows in complexity as a character.
One element of that complexity is that Beth doesn’t relinquish her bad-girl role even as she seeks to become a better person. She smokes, flirts, and most daringly, invades the men’s dormitory to secretly read the diary of an anguished middle-aged man facing bankruptcy and the end of his marriage. At the book’s muted but inventive climax, she seeks to combine her good and bad roles through a marathon meditation session and an intimate and funny encounter with Mi Nu, Dasgupta’s most ethereal and charismatic leader.
Parks, as I have since learned, spent time in an English Buddhist monastery and has written about the experience (Teach Us to Sit Still). It shows in his descriptions: from the experience of peeling and chopping vegetables in an institutional kitchen to the physical rituals of learning to meditate and internalize Buddhist precepts.
For me, however, the book is also a hidden commentary on the subject of reading and writing. How can one maintain a literary sensibility after becoming exhausted by the prospects of responding to yet more books? Parks explored this subject e in his essay collection, Where I’m Reading From. Is this a correct reading of Sex is Forbidden? I doubt it. But the connections between finding a balance in life and in literature made the book even more interesting to me by its end.
That ending? Beth is changed, yes, but life goes on. It may be that you never step into the same river twice, but it is also true that the river regularly flows through the same channels.
That may be the deceptively simple moral of the story, but the book itself must stand or fall on the stream of consciousness of its fascinating and contradictory main character, twentysomething Beth Marriot. Beth’s life is a mess, which is why she has spent the last nine months as a server at the Dusgupta Institute in England. She has a perfectly nice boyfriend she doesn’t love, a married lover who doesn’t love her enough, a career as a singer with too much alcohol and sex, and massive guilt over an accidental death. But Beth is also, in Parks’s description, a hottie with curly hair, gorgeous figure, and “irresistible hazel eyes.”
In her despair, Beth seeks refuge in the comforting routines of cooking for the hundred fifty “meditators” at Dasgupta, and in her efforts to seek enlightenment through the disciplines of Buddhism. It’s slog at first – for her and the reader – but the story gains a slow momentum, especially as Beth grows in complexity as a character.
One element of that complexity is that Beth doesn’t relinquish her bad-girl role even as she seeks to become a better person. She smokes, flirts, and most daringly, invades the men’s dormitory to secretly read the diary of an anguished middle-aged man facing bankruptcy and the end of his marriage. At the book’s muted but inventive climax, she seeks to combine her good and bad roles through a marathon meditation session and an intimate and funny encounter with Mi Nu, Dasgupta’s most ethereal and charismatic leader.
Parks, as I have since learned, spent time in an English Buddhist monastery and has written about the experience (Teach Us to Sit Still). It shows in his descriptions: from the experience of peeling and chopping vegetables in an institutional kitchen to the physical rituals of learning to meditate and internalize Buddhist precepts.
For me, however, the book is also a hidden commentary on the subject of reading and writing. How can one maintain a literary sensibility after becoming exhausted by the prospects of responding to yet more books? Parks explored this subject e in his essay collection, Where I’m Reading From. Is this a correct reading of Sex is Forbidden? I doubt it. But the connections between finding a balance in life and in literature made the book even more interesting to me by its end.
That ending? Beth is changed, yes, but life goes on. It may be that you never step into the same river twice, but it is also true that the river regularly flows through the same channels.
January 4, 2014
Drawing on his own experience of transcendental meditation, Tim Parks transports us into the mind of Beth, impulsive, provocative, sensuous twenty-something former singer in a pop band who has spent the past nine months in the incongruous role of server cooking, cleaning and setting a good example for a group of meditators on a ten day Buddhist retreat.
It is a strict regime: segregation of the sexes, no talking or touching, hours of exerting the "strong determination" to sit motionless in painful poses, focusing on breathing with the daily brainwashing from recordings made by the guru Dasgupta, "who preaches against self-regard in a self-regarding way". There is a consistent tone of scepticism, a flippancy, which may upset strong advocates of meditation. Despite this, Parks conveys a clear and strong sense of the process of meditation.
Although she used to have no trouble losing herself in music, and wishes ardently to change herself through meditation, Beth's thoughts keep slipping back to speculating about the other inmates, whom she cannot resist winding up and leading astray on occasion, or brooding on her clearly troubled past life. Some recent trauma has driven her to the retreat, and Parks skilfully drips out the facts to hold our attention.
Sometimes I found this book too contrived, too much of a master class in creative writing by an expert published author, rather than a sincere examination of human dilemmas. The detailed descriptions of the routines at the retreat are sometimes tedious, although this may have been the author's intention. Since he builds up a strong sense of tension, moving towards an anticipated dramatic, perhaps shocking and unpredictable ending, I was a little disappointed by the final chapters which have a kind of banality, making the experience in the retreat seem lightweight.
However, it is an original, well-constructed story and in the midst of the wry, jokey humour, there are some convincing characters and many telling observations on life and relationships.
It is a strict regime: segregation of the sexes, no talking or touching, hours of exerting the "strong determination" to sit motionless in painful poses, focusing on breathing with the daily brainwashing from recordings made by the guru Dasgupta, "who preaches against self-regard in a self-regarding way". There is a consistent tone of scepticism, a flippancy, which may upset strong advocates of meditation. Despite this, Parks conveys a clear and strong sense of the process of meditation.
Although she used to have no trouble losing herself in music, and wishes ardently to change herself through meditation, Beth's thoughts keep slipping back to speculating about the other inmates, whom she cannot resist winding up and leading astray on occasion, or brooding on her clearly troubled past life. Some recent trauma has driven her to the retreat, and Parks skilfully drips out the facts to hold our attention.
Sometimes I found this book too contrived, too much of a master class in creative writing by an expert published author, rather than a sincere examination of human dilemmas. The detailed descriptions of the routines at the retreat are sometimes tedious, although this may have been the author's intention. Since he builds up a strong sense of tension, moving towards an anticipated dramatic, perhaps shocking and unpredictable ending, I was a little disappointed by the final chapters which have a kind of banality, making the experience in the retreat seem lightweight.
However, it is an original, well-constructed story and in the midst of the wry, jokey humour, there are some convincing characters and many telling observations on life and relationships.
July 18, 2015
Story of a young woman who goes on a 10-day Buddhist retreat - and then doesn't go home. She stays on for several months volunteering at the retreat and ignoring her demons.
On telling our personal stories:
"Say it again and you'll have to correct your correction. Is the third version better than the first? Is it more or less painful? Was the second the right one? Try a fourth. A fifth. Mum had at least ten versions of her life. All wrong. And a thousand combinations of the ten. Each new story guarantees another will be needed to correct it."
On loving the pain of other people:
"What do stories do but glamorize pain?... They glamorize suffering. Only a life with suffering is glamorous... Starting with Christ. Physical suffering love suffering spiritual suffering. No suffering, no glamour. We're in love with dukkha. That's the truth. Head over heels in love with pain. Pretending we want happiness, we go prospecting for misery, like paupers panning for gold. Our lives have to be moving stories. No triumph without adversity. Long adversity... Angela's acid ashes... poor David Copperfield. Oh poor Little Nell. Oh, my generous heart having these generous feelings for these poor people... How many misery memoirs will be waiting on my desk when I get back to the office? Then her pain can be made public and everyone can hold it in their hands, savour it, caress it, fold back the page and sigh, Oh, what intense feelings, oh, what infernal dilemmas, oh, how noble the human soul! Oh, what a fascinating life!"
Sometimes I think that my love affair with fiction is really about exactly this.
On telling our personal stories:
"Say it again and you'll have to correct your correction. Is the third version better than the first? Is it more or less painful? Was the second the right one? Try a fourth. A fifth. Mum had at least ten versions of her life. All wrong. And a thousand combinations of the ten. Each new story guarantees another will be needed to correct it."
On loving the pain of other people:
"What do stories do but glamorize pain?... They glamorize suffering. Only a life with suffering is glamorous... Starting with Christ. Physical suffering love suffering spiritual suffering. No suffering, no glamour. We're in love with dukkha. That's the truth. Head over heels in love with pain. Pretending we want happiness, we go prospecting for misery, like paupers panning for gold. Our lives have to be moving stories. No triumph without adversity. Long adversity... Angela's acid ashes... poor David Copperfield. Oh poor Little Nell. Oh, my generous heart having these generous feelings for these poor people... How many misery memoirs will be waiting on my desk when I get back to the office? Then her pain can be made public and everyone can hold it in their hands, savour it, caress it, fold back the page and sigh, Oh, what intense feelings, oh, what infernal dilemmas, oh, how noble the human soul! Oh, what a fascinating life!"
Sometimes I think that my love affair with fiction is really about exactly this.
June 29, 2018
Admittedly, I picked up Sex is Forbidden because of the title. I was also drawn to its premise--it takes place at a meditation retreat and documents the main character's experiences there after a tragic accident. Unfortunately, despite the snippets of wisdom regarding a meditative mindset inserted here and there, I was not impressed. Beth, the main character, is supposed to come off as edgy with emotional baggage (A LOT of emotional baggage). I found her to be annoying and immature. The book itself takes place mostly in Beth's head, which would be fine if there were visible signs of character development. However, Beth pretty much ends of going in circles with her thought processes. She repeats herself a lot. "Her diarist" does the same thing. Internal struggles are a part of life, and fiction is a great place to view that from the outside looking in...yet internal struggles don't make good fiction without visible growth and understanding. I kept thinking Beth would have been better off seeing a therapist. I got bored by the repetitive nature of the book, and I also strongly disliked Beth as a character and as the first person narrator. She's negative, vulgar, and never seems to learn anything...even when she does learn, I was skeptical about whether she took those lessons to heart.
Sex is Forbidden made me dislike meditation...and I'm super into mindfulness; even when Beth has a positive thing to say about her experience at the retreat, it is veiled behind snark or quickly followed up by snark. Take an unlikeable character and put them into a setting you associate with positivity, and I suppose anything is possible.
Sex is Forbidden made me dislike meditation...and I'm super into mindfulness; even when Beth has a positive thing to say about her experience at the retreat, it is veiled behind snark or quickly followed up by snark. Take an unlikeable character and put them into a setting you associate with positivity, and I suppose anything is possible.
October 23, 2012
Tim Park’s novel ‘The Server’ is set at an English Buddhist retreat centre which bans – among other things – speaking and writing for all meditators. Now you would think that’s a bit limiting for a novel, but apart from a lot of thinking, reflecting and remembering, there are a few other tricks Park uses to make up for the limitations: firstly, Beth, the narrator, is a ‘server’, and servers are allowed to talk to each other about necessary things like cooking and cleaning, and some of them bend the rules a little to talk about other stuff too; secondly, Beth finds a diary, in which a male meditator secretly (‘illegally’) writes down all his thoughts about the retreat and,even worse, all his problems at home.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel and engaging with Beth’s complex inner life. Complex conflicts or conflictedness are maybe among the central themes of this novel:
On the one hand, Beth longs to comply with the retreat’s rules and to find healing in Buddhist meditation. On the other hand, her rebelliousness always finds a means of expression, which can be very funny at times.
Reading groups will find fertile ground for discussion here – about the limitations Parks has set himself and maybe also in how far the middle aged male author succeeds in creating his young female narrator, warts, farts, periods and all.
Personally, I loved Park’s way of telling his story and the way he brilliantly weaves together the different strands of his narrative, including a slow but steady unravelling of secrets and a fresh sense of humour.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel and engaging with Beth’s complex inner life. Complex conflicts or conflictedness are maybe among the central themes of this novel:
On the one hand, Beth longs to comply with the retreat’s rules and to find healing in Buddhist meditation. On the other hand, her rebelliousness always finds a means of expression, which can be very funny at times.
Reading groups will find fertile ground for discussion here – about the limitations Parks has set himself and maybe also in how far the middle aged male author succeeds in creating his young female narrator, warts, farts, periods and all.
Personally, I loved Park’s way of telling his story and the way he brilliantly weaves together the different strands of his narrative, including a slow but steady unravelling of secrets and a fresh sense of humour.
August 17, 2013
Omdat ik ooit, na het lezen van Parks' Destiny voor Tim Parks gevallen ben, lees ik alles wat hij publiceert. Rapids en Cleaver vond ik net zo betoverend; thematiek en stijl spreken mij bijzonder aan.
Maar na het lezen van de Server en na o.a. 'Leer ons stil te zitten' over zijn Vihapassana ervaringen, geef ik hem op. Goed journalistiek werk. Absoluut. Net als zijn boeken over Voetbalclub Verona en treinreizen door Italië. Maar deze romans halen het bloedstollende niveau van Destiny niet. Te particulier en te weinig universeel. Zoiets.
Maar na het lezen van de Server en na o.a. 'Leer ons stil te zitten' over zijn Vihapassana ervaringen, geef ik hem op. Goed journalistiek werk. Absoluut. Net als zijn boeken over Voetbalclub Verona en treinreizen door Italië. Maar deze romans halen het bloedstollende niveau van Destiny niet. Te particulier en te weinig universeel. Zoiets.
November 4, 2012
Servers are Ashram volunteers who do the dirty work while others have the luxury to meditate. Our hero Beth is cynical and in the Ashram for the wrong reasons, which creates a witty and unexpected inside perspective while she tries to sort out her own problems. The diary style allows for sharp and biting humour, which I enjoyed the most.
June 2, 2013
I read it after 'teach us to sit sill' and I was disappointed by the repetitions. It felt like a bit of a cheat, but I guess if I had read it as a standalone book I would have loved it as much as I love all that Tim Parks writes!
March 29, 2013
I really liked this book because it describes the inner conflicts and doubts of a spiritual seeker so well. I also like the style of writing, a bit cynical but not dark.
December 25, 2024
Rarely do I read more than half a book then abandon it. And I did contemplate pushing on, if just for one reason: to relive the experience of a ten-day silent Buddhist retreat. Tim Parks understands the principles of Vipassana meditation and vividly evokes the physical aspects of the courses. But his shallow, narcissistic narrator bored me. Twenty-something Beth has the attention span of a gnat. And okay, maybe I did too at her age (though I found her shortsightedness odd... is digital technology wrecking the eyesight of her generation?).
The thing is, having completed two ten-day retreats, both of which changed my life, if in different ways, I can think of many more interesting options than this inconsequential plot. Did it come to Parks while he meditated? Before this novel, he apparently wrote a well-reviewed memoir about how Vipassana helped free him of chronic pain.
Which seems like something worth writing about. But the server of this title is a big-breasted young woman who, while working in the kitchen, gets obsessed with the diary of a 50-something meditator, who catches her reading it on his bed. For a woman to enter a man’s room on the retreat is taboo. But by writing, he too is breaking the rules. Hardly high stakes as stories go.
And given that Parks tried Vipassana when he was roughly the age of his diarist character, it’s easy to imagine him covertly eyeing a female server and fantasising that she might find him intriguing enough to sneak into his room. In my admittedly limited experience, far more significant things happen for meditators who wholeheartedly embrace the restrictions. I found what I read of The Server unimaginative and superficial.
The thing is, having completed two ten-day retreats, both of which changed my life, if in different ways, I can think of many more interesting options than this inconsequential plot. Did it come to Parks while he meditated? Before this novel, he apparently wrote a well-reviewed memoir about how Vipassana helped free him of chronic pain.
Which seems like something worth writing about. But the server of this title is a big-breasted young woman who, while working in the kitchen, gets obsessed with the diary of a 50-something meditator, who catches her reading it on his bed. For a woman to enter a man’s room on the retreat is taboo. But by writing, he too is breaking the rules. Hardly high stakes as stories go.
And given that Parks tried Vipassana when he was roughly the age of his diarist character, it’s easy to imagine him covertly eyeing a female server and fantasising that she might find him intriguing enough to sneak into his room. In my admittedly limited experience, far more significant things happen for meditators who wholeheartedly embrace the restrictions. I found what I read of The Server unimaginative and superficial.
December 10, 2022
Experiment is goed. Experiment is nodig. Bij het uitkiezen van mijn volgende boek was ik na al die hoogstaande lectuur aan een lichtvoetig tussendoortje door en waarom niet eens onbekende paden inslaan met een onbekende roman van een Britse schrijver over hilarische situaties in een Boeddhistisch retraite centrum. Stond ik een paar jaar geleden niet zelf op het punt zo’n weekje door te brengen toen Corona daar uiteindelijk een stokje voor stak? Om maar te zeggen, de achtergrond en de setting van dit boek zijn mij niet totaal onbekend en dat lijkt mij wel een zekere vereiste om ‘De dienares’ te lezen. Ik heb het 100 blz. uitgehouden, mijn persoonlijke grens bij een streven naar evenwicht tussen volharding en nieuwsgierigheid enerzijds en beschikbare tijd in dit leven dat mij nog rest anderzijds.
Helaas dus, gewikt maar niet goed genoeg bevonden. Niet dat het slecht geschreven is en de humor in het hoofd van hoofdpersonage Beth kon ik zeker smaken. Het was de mayonaise aan fragmentarische gedachtenflitsen die bij mij niet pakte. Wanneer je met tegenzin naar je boek pakt om er in verder te lezen weet je dat het niet goed zit of dat je dit boek niet op het juiste moment aan het lezen bent. Ik geef het omwille van de literaire kwaliteiten van schrijver Tim Parks nog het voordeel van de twijfel.
Helaas dus, gewikt maar niet goed genoeg bevonden. Niet dat het slecht geschreven is en de humor in het hoofd van hoofdpersonage Beth kon ik zeker smaken. Het was de mayonaise aan fragmentarische gedachtenflitsen die bij mij niet pakte. Wanneer je met tegenzin naar je boek pakt om er in verder te lezen weet je dat het niet goed zit of dat je dit boek niet op het juiste moment aan het lezen bent. Ik geef het omwille van de literaire kwaliteiten van schrijver Tim Parks nog het voordeel van de twijfel.
April 24, 2021
As a 20-something who's been on an silent meditation retreat I could really relate to the main character and her experience of an extended retreat. Parks pays amazing attention to detail, capturing the vibe of a retreat centre perfectly and he is as clever and witty as ever.
August 24, 2019
So good. Starts a bit like Bridget Jones at meditation camp, and then progresses to get better and better. And deep.
December 15, 2020
molto scorrevole, una donna trascorre un lungo periodo in una comunità buddista.
Le giornate, la routine, le trasgressioni, la vita precedente..
Le giornate, la routine, le trasgressioni, la vita precedente..
January 4, 2021
De moeite om te lezen.
September 14, 2013
I was first introduced to Tim Parks by my best friend, who for my birthday, got me a copy of Tim Parks' non-fiction book, Teach Us to Sit Still, which follows Parks' struggle to cope with an illness that doctors can't seem to pinpoint, diagnose definitively, and so want to operate. After exhausting all other avenues, Parks decides he'll try a Buddhist retreat, where apparently, pain management can be found in meditation. The Server is a contemporary fiction novel set inside the boundaries of a Buddhist retreat, obviously inspired by his own time in one.
Bethany Marriot is a 'server' in the Dasgupta Institute, meaning she sets an example to the retreat's guests, and also takes part in the day-to-day running of the institute itself. It is obvious that Bethany is hiding a secret from everyone, using the retreat as a place to ignore the outside world, refusing to face up to her problems. And since sex, talking, male-female congregation is forbidden at the Dasgupta, Bethany knows she's safe. But Bethany stumbles upon a diary, written by a man in the retreat, and she soon becomes engrossed with this man and his problems; inevitably releasing all of her fears and worries from the outside world.
The novel is wholeheartedly a character driven novel. Not much actually happens, so it's absolutely important that you feel or connect with Beth; being written in the first-person. The problem with character driven novels is that they can be exceptionally slow, often literary and The Server sadly does suffer from this slightly. Especially in the beginning, where Beth hasn't come across the dreaded diary, and where all of her secrets aren't exactly known. But once you get past the routine of the Dasgupta, as well as all of the coinage associated with Buddhist retreats, this book holds within it as true mesmerising story.
Beth is annoying, there's no denying it. But warming, easily relatable (if that's a word) and clever (in a street-smart sense of way). You know she has secrets lurking in the background, and you can definitely understand why she's staying at the retreat. She wants rules; rules to live by, rules to set her life a path to follow, rules so she can forget the past. And some of the book is about the ins and outs of the Buddhist way, showing the religion and its mantra in a calming and respectable way. Some of the points do make sense, and it gets us (the reader) to question the way in which we conduct our own lives - and to do that, must mean that Parks is a gifted writer.
But behind the rules, Beth is a rule-breaker. She likes rules, just so she can break them, and when she discovers the diary (which in itself is breaking the rules) it forces her to become more skeptical of the rules set by the Dasgupta, and the 'old Beth' starts to return to the fore. And it's not a pretty thing. She's in multiple relationships, often playing a game with them to get what she wants. She sleeps around with both men and women and she's such an attention seeker. It may be annoying, but it makes for a fabulous read, and at times we can easily see some of ourselves in her character.
This is very much an adult book. Beth has a way with words, some of them expletives and sexual, but her blunt thoughts don't match the persona of 'Beth inside the Dasgupta' and she knows it very well. She's funny too on occasions, and its wonderful how The Server can flick between funny and serious so smoothly. There were quite a few times I found myself laughing out loud, but equally as many times where I found myself squirming, or shouting. It's a book that evokes many emotions.
The Server is a clever novel. If you can get past the slow start, inside you'll find a book that touches on religion, personality, grief and raw emotion. It was the Sunday Telegraph that said: 'Parks is an excellent writer, capable of writing wittily and with great beauty about the near indefinable' and I couldn't agree more. Tim Parks has a way at getting deep within a character, letting us see both the character everyone else sees, as well as the true person inside. If you've read Teach Us to Sit Still, then it's easy to see the connections between the two, but in my opinion, The Server is a much more successful book. If you're someone who loves explosive scenes of action, then I'm afraid this book isn't for you. If you're someone who loves to delve deep into the gritty multiple layer of the human self, then you'll find something very special indeed. The Server sums up exactly why Tim Park is a nominated Man Booker Prize author.
Bethany Marriot is a 'server' in the Dasgupta Institute, meaning she sets an example to the retreat's guests, and also takes part in the day-to-day running of the institute itself. It is obvious that Bethany is hiding a secret from everyone, using the retreat as a place to ignore the outside world, refusing to face up to her problems. And since sex, talking, male-female congregation is forbidden at the Dasgupta, Bethany knows she's safe. But Bethany stumbles upon a diary, written by a man in the retreat, and she soon becomes engrossed with this man and his problems; inevitably releasing all of her fears and worries from the outside world.
The novel is wholeheartedly a character driven novel. Not much actually happens, so it's absolutely important that you feel or connect with Beth; being written in the first-person. The problem with character driven novels is that they can be exceptionally slow, often literary and The Server sadly does suffer from this slightly. Especially in the beginning, where Beth hasn't come across the dreaded diary, and where all of her secrets aren't exactly known. But once you get past the routine of the Dasgupta, as well as all of the coinage associated with Buddhist retreats, this book holds within it as true mesmerising story.
Beth is annoying, there's no denying it. But warming, easily relatable (if that's a word) and clever (in a street-smart sense of way). You know she has secrets lurking in the background, and you can definitely understand why she's staying at the retreat. She wants rules; rules to live by, rules to set her life a path to follow, rules so she can forget the past. And some of the book is about the ins and outs of the Buddhist way, showing the religion and its mantra in a calming and respectable way. Some of the points do make sense, and it gets us (the reader) to question the way in which we conduct our own lives - and to do that, must mean that Parks is a gifted writer.
But behind the rules, Beth is a rule-breaker. She likes rules, just so she can break them, and when she discovers the diary (which in itself is breaking the rules) it forces her to become more skeptical of the rules set by the Dasgupta, and the 'old Beth' starts to return to the fore. And it's not a pretty thing. She's in multiple relationships, often playing a game with them to get what she wants. She sleeps around with both men and women and she's such an attention seeker. It may be annoying, but it makes for a fabulous read, and at times we can easily see some of ourselves in her character.
This is very much an adult book. Beth has a way with words, some of them expletives and sexual, but her blunt thoughts don't match the persona of 'Beth inside the Dasgupta' and she knows it very well. She's funny too on occasions, and its wonderful how The Server can flick between funny and serious so smoothly. There were quite a few times I found myself laughing out loud, but equally as many times where I found myself squirming, or shouting. It's a book that evokes many emotions.
The Server is a clever novel. If you can get past the slow start, inside you'll find a book that touches on religion, personality, grief and raw emotion. It was the Sunday Telegraph that said: 'Parks is an excellent writer, capable of writing wittily and with great beauty about the near indefinable' and I couldn't agree more. Tim Parks has a way at getting deep within a character, letting us see both the character everyone else sees, as well as the true person inside. If you've read Teach Us to Sit Still, then it's easy to see the connections between the two, but in my opinion, The Server is a much more successful book. If you're someone who loves explosive scenes of action, then I'm afraid this book isn't for you. If you're someone who loves to delve deep into the gritty multiple layer of the human self, then you'll find something very special indeed. The Server sums up exactly why Tim Park is a nominated Man Booker Prize author.
March 7, 2017
I liked the good a lot. It is entertaining, there is suspense and it really makes you think about why people are as they are and what you can do to distance yourself from things that might hurt.
January 11, 2014
I was glad to read on Tim Parks’ website that he considers this novel a companion work to his Teach Us to Sit Still (see my review). In Teach Us to Sit Still Parks recounted his troublesome prostate and how, after rejecting the cut and hope option offered by physicians, happened upon a suggested remedy that involved, of all things, sitting. This sitting led him into the foreign world of vipassana meditation (the Buddhist meditation practice from Southeast Asia associated with the Theravadan tradition). In The Server, Parks explores the stark contract between the austerity of a Buddhist meditation retreat center and our egoistic, narrative selves prominent in the in many contemporary lives.
The first-person narrative is a running monologue in the mind of Beth Marriot. Beth is a vivacious but troubled young woman who comes to the center and stays to serve new participants by working in the kitchen. Her mind, when unleashed, recounts and rehashes issues with parents, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, an older lover, and a brush with death, among other things. After months at the meditation center, having apparently calmed her mind to some extent, it’s turned back on by discovering a diary of a participant who recounts his own narrative of woe, despite the ban on writing while participating in the retreat. After this discovery, Beth careens through thoughts and actions quite contrary to the austere and ascetic practice of the retreat. This clash of Buddhist austerity with the contemporary, narrative self drives the story.
The story provides an excellent vehicle for pondering how this Buddhist world-view, what one may call a non-narrative approach to life, comports with our contemporary notions of self in the land of novels, Freud, and self-expression. (I suspect that these issues exist in the “East”, too; they wouldn’t have the antidote if they didn’t suffer the disease, would they?). Parks doesn’t attempt to answer how these two attitudes might be reconciled or whether one must ultimately prevail. One suspects that the two views, which have probably competed for the length of human history, will continue to lead an uneasy, but perhaps fruitful co-existence.
The story makes for a roller-coaster ride—this young woman has lots of karma and vivacity (are they linked?) —and sometimes you want to tell her “whoa, slow down”, but she can’t, and that makes a trip through a meditation retreat a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
The first-person narrative is a running monologue in the mind of Beth Marriot. Beth is a vivacious but troubled young woman who comes to the center and stays to serve new participants by working in the kitchen. Her mind, when unleashed, recounts and rehashes issues with parents, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, an older lover, and a brush with death, among other things. After months at the meditation center, having apparently calmed her mind to some extent, it’s turned back on by discovering a diary of a participant who recounts his own narrative of woe, despite the ban on writing while participating in the retreat. After this discovery, Beth careens through thoughts and actions quite contrary to the austere and ascetic practice of the retreat. This clash of Buddhist austerity with the contemporary, narrative self drives the story.
The story provides an excellent vehicle for pondering how this Buddhist world-view, what one may call a non-narrative approach to life, comports with our contemporary notions of self in the land of novels, Freud, and self-expression. (I suspect that these issues exist in the “East”, too; they wouldn’t have the antidote if they didn’t suffer the disease, would they?). Parks doesn’t attempt to answer how these two attitudes might be reconciled or whether one must ultimately prevail. One suspects that the two views, which have probably competed for the length of human history, will continue to lead an uneasy, but perhaps fruitful co-existence.
The story makes for a roller-coaster ride—this young woman has lots of karma and vivacity (are they linked?) —and sometimes you want to tell her “whoa, slow down”, but she can’t, and that makes a trip through a meditation retreat a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
April 11, 2014
And so, Beth attempts to use Buddhism to fix her troubled and dysfunctional self. Parks drops us into Beth's story, nine months into her retreat. The retreat is actually ten days but Beth doesn't want to leave--she hasn't found nirvana yet. So she sticks around attempting to ruin nirvana and the retreat for many of the people there (because? Well, because she is or should be the center of the universe). I found her to be one of the most self-absorbed and unenlightened (and unappealing) characters I've encountered in a novel (though memoirs seem to be filled with them). So perhaps she seems a perfect candidate for a retreat. There are times in the novel where she almost makes me ill with her behavior. But, perhaps part of what Parks is doing is showing us how hard it is to actually practice the Buddhist precepts ourselves as we read. Normally, I would want to abandon a novel like this early on, but there are moments of insight (usually in the diary of another retreat participant that Beth has stolen) that are thought provoking and raise questions like, "Why do people seem so attached to their pain? How difficult would it be to let it go (is it even possible?)? Can a ten day retreat change your life? Are people motivated by craving? Is all life suffering? These questions are raised in many books but the vehicle Parks uses makes them a bit more complex. This is not your usual dysfunctional character seeks enlightenment novel.
There is a tone in this novel that is half, isn't this funny/ridiculous and half wouldn't it be nice if this worked? This precarious balancing is a nice change I think for readers who are left to figure out where exactly they stand.
There is a tone in this novel that is half, isn't this funny/ridiculous and half wouldn't it be nice if this worked? This precarious balancing is a nice change I think for readers who are left to figure out where exactly they stand.
November 20, 2013
I made it three quarters of the way through this book before I caved and looked up Tim Parks, the author on YouTube. Thus far, I had read the book not entirely certain of whether the writer was an adherent to Buddhism or not. It was clear that he had more than a working familiarity with how meditation retreats function, but the tone gave me a sort of Elizabeth Gilbert vibe. When I say that, I mean the whiney-ness of it. As a result, I was surprised to find that Parks is actually a devoted convert to mindfulness. So devoted is he, that he has written books and given many talks, talks in which he goes into much detail about his prostate and digestive functioning. Anyway, eek, it’s out there for you all if you need to hear it. I’ve heard enough.
Parks has a very easy to read style. Perhaps if he conveyed the suffering differently, I would have felt it more acutely. Instead, I read on more to hear more detail of the mundane day-to-day functioning of the retreat and the practice of meditation. The characters were not as compelling to me.
One of his main messages is that writing is diametrically opposed to meditation. Beth, the main character, at one time tells another that his diary is undoing all the work of meditation.
Bottom line: a quick, easy read for those interested in the subject matter.
Parks has a very easy to read style. Perhaps if he conveyed the suffering differently, I would have felt it more acutely. Instead, I read on more to hear more detail of the mundane day-to-day functioning of the retreat and the practice of meditation. The characters were not as compelling to me.
One of his main messages is that writing is diametrically opposed to meditation. Beth, the main character, at one time tells another that his diary is undoing all the work of meditation.
Bottom line: a quick, easy read for those interested in the subject matter.
September 24, 2014
Tim Parks,a writer of range & variety, offers-up a meditation on modern obsessions; the title teases the reader, as the vigil-like retreat from the world of Beth Marriott, failing rock musician & human- being, progresses through various emotional crises at the Dasgupta Institute, a well-parodied Buddhist solution to personal & private trauma. She emerges from her nine-month submersion with renewed resolve to tackle her long-lived demons - a death caused by her attempted suicide amongst them - with admirable calm. A novel with a philosophical/religious/ethical undertow which throws-up some entertaining character-clashes in a world of rules & prescriptions, a recurring theme in Parks's work, raised, as he was, in a tight community of religious enthusiasts; read his earliest novels! He writes with fluency & humour when necessary, but his essential mantra is one of freedom from constraints on the human spirit, insightful & life-affirming. Sex is forbidden, yes...but it's never far from Beth's thoughts...& was surely the very cause of her self-imposed abstinence to start with...Carl or Jonathan or Zoe!...follow her quest for freedom!
September 29, 2016
Sex is Forbidden took a bit of determination to get through, although it did gain more momentum in the second half. It was certainly less absorbing a read than Parks' Teach Us To Sit Still, but I did ultimately enjoy it, particularly as a re-examination of Parks' own meditation experiences in a fictional context. Poses interesting questions about ego and writing, over and above the discussion of meditation itself. The repetitiveness of a mind in turmoil was well reflected in the style, although this did seem to put some readers off; I myself may also have been annoyed if I were not aware of buddhist ideas of monkey mind and had consequently mistaken this delierate stylistic choice for a shorcoming of the author.
I don't think this book is for everyone, and I would hesitate to recommend it to somebody who was not interested in both writing/journalling and in meditation.
Ultimately I give it 3.5 stars, with a bonus half point for the excellent title and cover - sex is indeed forbidden in this book, and in this vein it does not disappoint.
I don't think this book is for everyone, and I would hesitate to recommend it to somebody who was not interested in both writing/journalling and in meditation.
Ultimately I give it 3.5 stars, with a bonus half point for the excellent title and cover - sex is indeed forbidden in this book, and in this vein it does not disappoint.
February 15, 2013
Wat ik zo ontzettend knap vind, is de manier waarop Tim Parks zich weet te verplaatsen in het personage van een vrouw.
Je zou bijna denken dat een vrouw het geschreven heeft. Hij beschrijft de hoofdpersoon heel levendig en hoewel er niet veel gebeurt -het leven op de Ashram is niet heel bruisend- weet hij mij in het begin toch te boeien. Halverwege verandert dat en wil ik wel wat meer spanning!
Ondanks de levendige beschrijvingen en de aparte, grappige gedachtespinsels van de hoofdpersoon,ontbreekt mij de zin om het helemaal uit te lezen.
Toch ben ik best benieuwd naar andere boeken van Tim Parks, want schrijven kan hij wel.
July 16, 2014
Ooh yes, this was good. I kept turning the pages. On the back of the book, some reviewer wrote that the book was about what happens when the western self tries to lose itself, and I think that was a rewarding lens to read this through.
I've just started meditating regularly -- and have been considering a retreat -- so this was particularly interesting and relevant to me.
Also, it was interesting to read a novel by someone who I've only previously encountered for his writing about dissatisfaction with the form: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/...
I've just started meditating regularly -- and have been considering a retreat -- so this was particularly interesting and relevant to me.
Also, it was interesting to read a novel by someone who I've only previously encountered for his writing about dissatisfaction with the form: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/...
September 6, 2014
I figure that the nearest I will get to vipassana is to read about it, and I enjoyed reading about the technique and the practice. However this story is really about the main character dealing her own emotional self-destruction. Beth is such a troubled soul its hard to believe that she can sit for hours focusing on her breath. Her story becomes intertwined with another troubled soul which adds to the drama.
Beth lacks any real insight into her own flaws, and while she is quite unlikeable, her struggle to obtain peace of mind sustains the narrative.
Beth lacks any real insight into her own flaws, and while she is quite unlikeable, her struggle to obtain peace of mind sustains the narrative.
April 16, 2016
I have read other stuff by Tim Parks and found it refreshingly hilarious. This, though, was excruciating. I couldn't tell if it was just the incongruity of him using a female mouthpiece so badly. Was the plot just crap? Too slow moving? Could I just not relate?
By page 20 which I had to read 5 times I realised it wasn't for me. I flicked ahead where someone has obviously sneezed on the page (there was evidence) and made a more definite decision to slam the book shut and never read it again. Terrible.
By page 20 which I had to read 5 times I realised it wasn't for me. I flicked ahead where someone has obviously sneezed on the page (there was evidence) and made a more definite decision to slam the book shut and never read it again. Terrible.
February 16, 2014
I really wanted to like this book. I thought the title was clever and it definitely caught my attention. However, it became very repetitive early on. I did not like the main character --- or maybe I just found it hard to sympathize with her. I ended up skimming the last third of the book just to see how it ended. It had so much promise early on, but I got bored with it. I think the main character needed therapy more than she needed to meditate. Or both, that would have been good...
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