The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness

We just read this little gem for book group. I use "little gem" somewhat ironically, because that's exactly what it is, and sometimes it's just a bit much.

Overall, this really is a great little book. I enjoyed his weaving back and forth between classic folk tales, some familiar and some new to me, and his own experience. The tales were well chosen and unadorned, just the simple story offered for our pondering and followed by his parallel experience. Following this pattern, he takes us on his journey not only to accept but to find beauty in his personal tragedy: being a storyteller who loses his voice.

Oddly, the tragedy doesn't seem to touch at all on mundane temporal concerns like "how do I pay my bills now that I can no longer practice my livelihood?" His is a purely existential crisis, and he seems to have plenty of time to explore it.

He spends most of this time at his storytelling mentor's house, where he encounters frustrating riddles that eventually lead him to discover the truth: that losing his voice really has given him a gift that he could find in no other way, a gift that really does make a difference in his life.

This mentor framework is part of what I mean by "a bit much." It seems obvious to me that every insight was not actually spurred by a conversation with this one crazy, wise man. Of course, it would make for a very confusing and boring story to explain that one insight came while he was driving, another in the shower, another during a conversation with his wife. So I appreciate the necessity of the mentor frame, but it still distracted me.

Even so, this book does give you a lot to think about and provided our group a rich, big-ideas discussion. I marked many passages in spite of myself (and in spite of the fact that it was a library book--I used pencil and erased before returning). I don't want to spoil it by giving away the insights, so I'll just encourage you to sit down with it some rainy weekend when you're in the mood for a folksy, life-affirming, easy but thought-provoking read.