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by Lanza del Vasto

English, French (translation)

Genres: Spirituality, India

319 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1972

About the author

Giuseppe Giovanni Lanza del Vasto è stato un filosofo, poeta e scrittore italiano. La sua personalità eccezionale riunisce caratteristiche disparate: poeta, scrittore, filosofo, pensatore religioso con una forte vena mistica, ma anche patriarca fondatore di comunità rurali sul modello di quelle gandhiane e attivista nonviolento contro la guerra d'Algeria o gli armamenti nucleari.

Source: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanza_de...

Reviews

[Revanth Ukkalam]

What an unlikely ode to Gandhi! Here is a Christianity finding a Christian saint in Gandhi and seeking him out in India but how different a way than Gandhi dreamed! Sure, Gandhi is heavily colonised and Christianised but he embodied Hindu religion in a way very few modern Hindu saints and thinkers did. All of this is lost to Vasto - he is disgusted by India for being the site of excess that he sees it as; its people are greedy, lack hygiene, and lack rationality and also decorum. He also passes slurs at Hindus for indulging in untouchability but very quickly a reader will see that in reality what he truly dislikes are the untouchables; of course Manu is reserved all praise for ordering Hindu society with structure and without violence. And the only people he dislikes more than all the rest are Muslims - them barbarians in his eyes.

[terrystad dit Roy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un récit de voyage et un essai spirituel à saveur bibliographique.

L’auteur a le mérite d’avoir eu une ouverture et d’avoir tentée, le plus possible, de saisir la culture indienne ( tout en gardant intact ses croyances très catholiques).

Il m’a semblé plutôt versé dans la charité religieuse, ennemie du changement, et qui permet aux classes de se maintenir tels quels.

Un discours qui a mal vieilli mais il faut remettre l’homme dans son époque et, à cet égard, il a tout mon respect.