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We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies
A haunting and stunningly lyrical first novel that recounts a Tibetan family's fifty-year journey through exile and their struggles to forge new lives of dignity, love, and hope.
In the wake of China's 1959 invasion of Tibet, Lhamo and her sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp on the border of Nepal, having survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas into exile when so many others did not. As Lhamo--haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, the village oracle--tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel, whose uncle brings with him the ancient statue of the Nameless Saint, a relic long rumoured to vanish and reappear in times of need.
Decades later, the sisters are separated, and Tenkyi is living with Lhamo's daughter, Dolma, in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. While Tenkyi works as a cleaner and struggles with traumatic memories, Dolma vies for a place as a scholar of Tibet Studies. But when Dolma comes across the Nameless Saint in a collector's vault, she must decide what she is willing to do for her community, even if it means risking her dreams.
Breathtaking in scope and powerfully intimate, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we'll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of four people over fifty years, this beautifully lyrical debut novel provides a nuanced portrait of the little-known world of Tibetan exiles.
In the wake of China's 1959 invasion of Tibet, Lhamo and her sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp on the border of Nepal, having survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas into exile when so many others did not. As Lhamo--haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, the village oracle--tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel, whose uncle brings with him the ancient statue of the Nameless Saint, a relic long rumoured to vanish and reappear in times of need.
Decades later, the sisters are separated, and Tenkyi is living with Lhamo's daughter, Dolma, in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. While Tenkyi works as a cleaner and struggles with traumatic memories, Dolma vies for a place as a scholar of Tibet Studies. But when Dolma comes across the Nameless Saint in a collector's vault, she must decide what she is willing to do for her community, even if it means risking her dreams.
Breathtaking in scope and powerfully intimate, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we'll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of four people over fifty years, this beautifully lyrical debut novel provides a nuanced portrait of the little-known world of Tibetan exiles.
368 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 2022
370 people are currently reading
17100 people want to read
About the author
Tsering Yangzom Lama
1 book117 followersTsering Yangzom Lama is a Tibetan writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose debut novel We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies was published in 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 514 reviews
December 18, 2022
This is one of those wide ranging family sagas, but it's not as tedious as it sounds. The story begins in Tibet around the time of the 1959 uprising and the Dalai Lama's flight into exile. We follow two young girls and their family as they flee into Nepal and, after a separation and jump in time, into Canada where the narrative thread is picked up by one of the girl's daughters. Tsering Yangzom Lama has a lot of interesting things to say, highlighting not only the diaspora's impact on the Tibetan community but also the appropriation of the Tibetan cause by non-Tibetan westerners. This could have been a fabulous novel, although in terms of form it is dressed down into standard commercial fare, with more than a touch of sentimentality, perhaps in an effort to appeal to a larger audience. The result is a work that feels unexciting and clichéd, which is a shame because it explores important themes with nuance in a way that multi-generational family sagas usually sidestep.
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August 6, 2023I wanted very much to learn about the Tibetan experience of the Chinese occupation, but the voice here did more telling than showing, and I never entered the world. Plus, there were odd moments of the opposite, where the narrator submerged me in a detail so narrow, I felt like a bee in a jar.
August 1, 2025
*Spoilers come in the form of questions I still have rather than plot points...
I've never read a book before that illustrates the sheer effect of displacement... the visceral yearning, the physical pain, and loneliness even for Dolma, who had never even set foot in Tibet... you come away with more questions than answers in this book, and that may be frustrating for readers....but that is what displacement is like... no answers... or answers you wait in vain for...half knowing you'll never get them, but you can't move on either...I never learned what stunted Samphel from wanting happiness... could insecurity really be that crippling? What incessantly tortured Tenkyi? What makes Dolma ambitious but listless? Did Ama really hold powers, or did she feel the burden to give hope in some way? What made Lhamo stay with her unhappiness? It's as if taking the land from these people is not only their home, but their spirit, their need to be surrounded by their Gods and their indecipherable powers, their physical wellbeing, and inner peace. I would be lying if I didn't expect the Ku to turn up at any moment...to be some sign of hope and a mystical sign of how they will continue to endure and be protected...but that too is now powerless, or always was just a symbol of hope, perhaps, or a mystery I am too naive to understand...
I've never read a book before that illustrates the sheer effect of displacement... the visceral yearning, the physical pain, and loneliness even for Dolma, who had never even set foot in Tibet... you come away with more questions than answers in this book, and that may be frustrating for readers....but that is what displacement is like... no answers... or answers you wait in vain for...half knowing you'll never get them, but you can't move on either...I never learned what stunted Samphel from wanting happiness... could insecurity really be that crippling? What incessantly tortured Tenkyi? What makes Dolma ambitious but listless? Did Ama really hold powers, or did she feel the burden to give hope in some way? What made Lhamo stay with her unhappiness? It's as if taking the land from these people is not only their home, but their spirit, their need to be surrounded by their Gods and their indecipherable powers, their physical wellbeing, and inner peace. I would be lying if I didn't expect the Ku to turn up at any moment...to be some sign of hope and a mystical sign of how they will continue to endure and be protected...but that too is now powerless, or always was just a symbol of hope, perhaps, or a mystery I am too naive to understand...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2022
“He described the frost on the squat bushes of yellow and red flowers, and the golden light on the mountain at dawn as pilgrims began their prostrations, lying on the ground in supplication for their sins. He described how the pilgrims would stretch their arms forward, mark the earth with their fingers, stand up, walk to that mark, and lie down again. Four weeks, he said, they circled the mountain in this manner until they completed their symbolic act of death and rebirth.”
This book interested me because I know almost nothing about Tibet. It follows a family of Tibetans from the initial Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1960s, through their flight to Nepal and the eventual resettlement of some members of the family in Toronto, Canada. The book has extensive descriptions of life as refugees struggling to survive, work and gain an education. There is a heavy overlay of religion and mysticism. The discovery of a Tibetan religious article in Canada leads to a discussion of the antiquities trade and the dispersion of items central to Tibetan culture.
I would probably have enjoyed this book more were it not for the disjointed chronology. Everyone’s story was told in small bites scattered throughout the book. The book felt very long. I also could have done without the soap-opera-level story of lost love. I did learn things from this book, but I wasn’t a huge fan of its structure.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
This book interested me because I know almost nothing about Tibet. It follows a family of Tibetans from the initial Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1960s, through their flight to Nepal and the eventual resettlement of some members of the family in Toronto, Canada. The book has extensive descriptions of life as refugees struggling to survive, work and gain an education. There is a heavy overlay of religion and mysticism. The discovery of a Tibetan religious article in Canada leads to a discussion of the antiquities trade and the dispersion of items central to Tibetan culture.
I would probably have enjoyed this book more were it not for the disjointed chronology. Everyone’s story was told in small bites scattered throughout the book. The book felt very long. I also could have done without the soap-opera-level story of lost love. I did learn things from this book, but I wasn’t a huge fan of its structure.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
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June 27, 2022Abandoned at page 42. I could tell from the first few pages that the writing style was not suited to my taste. I persevered for awhile because I have a strong interest in the topic. But it's just too dry and plodding, and utterly lacking in emotional connection with what is happening to the characters.
August 13, 2022
Tibetan sisters Lhamo and Tenkyi, along with their parents, flee their home in the wake of the Chinese army’s occupation in the 1950s. During the journey into Nepal, the family is asked to safeguard a small religious statue, called a ku. The sisters end up in a Nepalese refugee settlement, where Lhamo meets and develops a complicated relationship with Samphel. Tenkyi eventually emigrates to Canada, and Lhamo’s daughter, Dolma, eventually joins her in Toronto to pursue an education in Tibetan culture and history. It is a story of relocation, suffering, and resilience.
The ku is a recurring object throughout the story. “And here he is. Our camp’s lost Saint. So humble, so precious. Looking up with teeth bared, eyes wide, as if struggling to speak. I almost want to laugh because right here on this cluttered oak table, in this object, is our entire history, the whole of our civilization.”
The storyline travels backward and forward in time to provide the family’s ancestral history, trace the provenance of the ku, and follow Dolma’s increasing awareness of her family’s past traumas. She has been shielded from finding out too much by the older generation, who closely guard their painful past experiences.
The prose is beautiful. It is an intricately crafted story. It contains enough complexity to keep the reader’s interest. The author employs alternating first person perspectives that shift in time to contrast the old and new lifestyles. It also provides an opportunity to learn more about our world – in this case the Tibetan refugee experience, Tibetan culture, and its annexation by China. Much of it is set near the border of Tibet and Nepal.
The importance of a homeland to a sense of identity is integral to the narrative. It is sprinkled with Tibetan words, rites, and spiritual beliefs. Moving parts include an oracle, a love story, orphaned children, art collectors, multiple journeys, and personal growth for the main characters. The ending is emotional and satisfying. It is a wonderful reading experience. Highly recommended!
The ku is a recurring object throughout the story. “And here he is. Our camp’s lost Saint. So humble, so precious. Looking up with teeth bared, eyes wide, as if struggling to speak. I almost want to laugh because right here on this cluttered oak table, in this object, is our entire history, the whole of our civilization.”
The storyline travels backward and forward in time to provide the family’s ancestral history, trace the provenance of the ku, and follow Dolma’s increasing awareness of her family’s past traumas. She has been shielded from finding out too much by the older generation, who closely guard their painful past experiences.
The prose is beautiful. It is an intricately crafted story. It contains enough complexity to keep the reader’s interest. The author employs alternating first person perspectives that shift in time to contrast the old and new lifestyles. It also provides an opportunity to learn more about our world – in this case the Tibetan refugee experience, Tibetan culture, and its annexation by China. Much of it is set near the border of Tibet and Nepal.
The importance of a homeland to a sense of identity is integral to the narrative. It is sprinkled with Tibetan words, rites, and spiritual beliefs. Moving parts include an oracle, a love story, orphaned children, art collectors, multiple journeys, and personal growth for the main characters. The ending is emotional and satisfying. It is a wonderful reading experience. Highly recommended!
May 5, 2022
I loved this book! I've always wanted to know more about Tibet and the people of Tibet and this book was like getting the history of Tibet in a very personal way. The characters were so interesting and the writing was excellent. I hope many people will read this book because it is a story that needs to be told--again and again. Kudos to the author!!
January 24, 2023
"Professor Wallace recalled the strong winds, the treeless landscape, thousands upon thousands of prayer flags woven together along the mountain pass. He described the frost on the squat bushes of yellow and red flowers, and the golden light on the mountain at dawn as pilgrims began their prostrations, lying on the ground in supplication for their sins. He described how the pilgrims would stretch their arms forward, mark the earth with their fingers, stand up, walk to that mark, and lie down again.
For weeks, he said, they circled the mountain in this manner until they completed their symbolic act of death and rebirth.
Of course, I knew about prostrations. They were part of our daily rituals at home, in the morning and again at sundown. In the camp, we often heard stories of people who made long journeys with prostrations...
The idea alone was staggering. To measure the earth with my body, to know our country with my own skin. It seems like the only way to fathom such a land."
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies was shortlisted for the Giller prize in 2022. I enjoyed reading this heartfelt and magical saga of a Tibetan family's love, sacrifice, and heritage. This beautifully lyrical debut novel is told through the lives of Lhamo, her sister Tenkyi, Samphel, and Lhamo's daughter Dolma.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
For weeks, he said, they circled the mountain in this manner until they completed their symbolic act of death and rebirth.
Of course, I knew about prostrations. They were part of our daily rituals at home, in the morning and again at sundown. In the camp, we often heard stories of people who made long journeys with prostrations...
The idea alone was staggering. To measure the earth with my body, to know our country with my own skin. It seems like the only way to fathom such a land."
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies was shortlisted for the Giller prize in 2022. I enjoyed reading this heartfelt and magical saga of a Tibetan family's love, sacrifice, and heritage. This beautifully lyrical debut novel is told through the lives of Lhamo, her sister Tenkyi, Samphel, and Lhamo's daughter Dolma.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
June 19, 2022
Tsering Yangzom Lama's We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a multigenerational novel beginning shortly before the Chinese invasion of Tibet and continuing through to the present day. The generations included in the novel are those who were adults at the time of the invasion, their children, and the subsequent generation of children born in the refugee camps that Tibetans were forced to flee to.
At the center of the novel is a nameless clay saint figurine, rescued from a destroyed monastery. Unlike most such figures, this one is humble, unembellished, human and vulnerable in appearance. This nameless saint is reputed to disappear, then reappear in times of crisis when his presence is needed—times such as the invasion of Tibet and the years following that invasion. Readers see the nameless saint being used in healing rituals pre-invasion and in the refugee camps, and in Canada purchased as an addition to a wealthy orientalist's "Asian" collection. (The choice of "orientalist," rather than another term is deliberate here, intended to reflect both Western lumping together of the cultures within China and across the Asian continent and the view of the nameless saint as an artifact, rather than a living protector of a community that continues to exist after decades of cultural genocide.)
The aspiring scholar/daughter of a woman living in a refugee camp in Nepal who has immigrated to Canada and is pursuing graduate work in Tibetan Culture is shown the nameless saint at a party of mingled scholars, art patrons, and activists and recognizes it as the legendary figurine she grew up hearing about but had never seen. The novel's central characters include this woman—one of the generation born in refugee camps—her aunt, who has also immigrated to Canada; her mother, who continues to live in the camp in Nepal; and the grandmother she never knew who was a traditional healer.
Lama gives us a powerful narrative of the Tibetan diaspora, along with an exploration of the cultural changes that resulting from this diaspora. Is the nameless saint a god or is it merely an object? Where does it belong—carefully preserved in a museum or private collection or among the people who still see it as a living force with protective powers? We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies makes for powerful and enlightening reading, serving as both history (as experienced through fiction) and as an opening into a larger consideration of colonialism, conquest, and the deliberate erasure of cultures.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title; the opinions are my own.
At the center of the novel is a nameless clay saint figurine, rescued from a destroyed monastery. Unlike most such figures, this one is humble, unembellished, human and vulnerable in appearance. This nameless saint is reputed to disappear, then reappear in times of crisis when his presence is needed—times such as the invasion of Tibet and the years following that invasion. Readers see the nameless saint being used in healing rituals pre-invasion and in the refugee camps, and in Canada purchased as an addition to a wealthy orientalist's "Asian" collection. (The choice of "orientalist," rather than another term is deliberate here, intended to reflect both Western lumping together of the cultures within China and across the Asian continent and the view of the nameless saint as an artifact, rather than a living protector of a community that continues to exist after decades of cultural genocide.)
The aspiring scholar/daughter of a woman living in a refugee camp in Nepal who has immigrated to Canada and is pursuing graduate work in Tibetan Culture is shown the nameless saint at a party of mingled scholars, art patrons, and activists and recognizes it as the legendary figurine she grew up hearing about but had never seen. The novel's central characters include this woman—one of the generation born in refugee camps—her aunt, who has also immigrated to Canada; her mother, who continues to live in the camp in Nepal; and the grandmother she never knew who was a traditional healer.
Lama gives us a powerful narrative of the Tibetan diaspora, along with an exploration of the cultural changes that resulting from this diaspora. Is the nameless saint a god or is it merely an object? Where does it belong—carefully preserved in a museum or private collection or among the people who still see it as a living force with protective powers? We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies makes for powerful and enlightening reading, serving as both history (as experienced through fiction) and as an opening into a larger consideration of colonialism, conquest, and the deliberate erasure of cultures.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title; the opinions are my own.
October 20, 2022
Good story, but I felt a bit of distance. At first, I wasn’t totally engrossed even though there were lots of emotional things happening within the narrative. But it started to build into something insightful, atmospheric, and moving.
A fascinating aspect is how non-Tibetan Westerners embrace and appropriate Tibetan ideas and culture, but ignore the plight of Tibetans (or know very little about the people).
A fascinating aspect is how non-Tibetan Westerners embrace and appropriate Tibetan ideas and culture, but ignore the plight of Tibetans (or know very little about the people).
March 6, 2023
In October 1950, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army invaded the Tibetan region of Chamdo, beginning the start of what has been—and continues to be—one of the most heart-breaking stories of exile ever. Within a decade of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet: in March 1959, he left Tibet and took asylum in India. Besides the Dalai Lama’s retinue that went into voluntary exile with the Dalai Lama, so did thousands of other Tibetans, all leaving behind homes, stability, memories.
Tsering Yangzhom Lama’s We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies begins in this time, this space: as a small family—father, mother, their two young daughters—leave their home in a Tibetan village and set out for Nepal. The elder daughter Lhamo, not yet a teenager, ends up taking on perhaps more than her fair share of work as her mother, who is the local oracle, finds the best path for the village to follow: the safest, the most likely to bring them to a land where they will find peace and prosperity.
But will they? Can the Tibetans, ousted from their homeland, ever really settle down elsewhere? This is a question that crops up again and again in subtle ways all through Lama’s novel as it moves across fifty years and two continents. Divided into three parts, the book is always told in the first person, but the narrators change. In part 1, Daughters, the narrators are Lhamo in the early 1960s and her daughter Dolma, fifty years later in Canada. In part 2, Sisters, Lhamo and her sister Tenkyi continue the story, bridging the gap between Nepal (where Lhamo still lives) and Canada (where Tenkyi now lives with her niece Dolma). The last part, Lovers, is told from the point of view of Lhamo and of Samphel, the man whom she first came to know as a young teenager in a refugee camp in Nepal.
Thrown into the mix is a sacred artefact, a tiny statue made of mudstone, a ‘ku’ which finds its way into Lhamo’s family. The ‘Nameless Saint’, as he is known and venerated by Lhamo’s friends and family, is believed to have the power to make his way wherever he is most needed. How he travels, whether of his own accord or pushed and pulled by the humans around him, forms an important thread in this story.
While there are plenty of other characters—friends; relatives both near and distant; lovers; teachers—it is these four people, their lives intertwined, who form the core of the novel: Lhamo and Tenkyi, Samphel, Dolma. In their attempts to rebuild lives torn apart by displacement; their ache for stability, prosperity, love; the dreams that haunt them and the memories that pull them back towards a land that is no longer their own, they are very real, complex, three-dimensional.
They are, perhaps, too, symbolic of the Tibetans in general: a people in exile, permanently moving, ‘measuring the Earth with their bodies’. As Lama explains it, through the words of Dolma: “Of course, I knew about prostrations… I remember the story of one pilgrim who had even travelled across all of Tibet, from east to west, lying down and rising, over and over until he reached the yearly Kalachakra prayers in India…”. For Dolma herself, and for Tenkyi and Samphel to some extent, there is a need to travel in order to find truth and solace—if not for themselves, for those they care for—that is almost akin to the deep devotion needed for prostrations. Perhaps that is true for most Tibetans, suggests Lama: searching constantly, traversing the globe, trying to find a way back.
Not only is We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies deeply moving, it also serves to show something of the ethos of the Tibetan diaspora. These are a people who have been displaced for so long but have been forgotten. No foreign powers battle on their behalf, and they are overlooked when it comes to the global memory of human rights. Protests, petitions, self-immolations: these, and more, get swept away with the debris of everyday news, leaving little or no mark of their passage. Painfully few people outside of the Tibetan community know or value anything about them, other than their culture: those beautiful thangkas, the exquisite arts and crafts, the Tibetan chants.
But what lies beneath it all?
This novel serves to explain some of that in a gentle, sympathetic way that is very readable and at the same time informative. Never, however, does the information seem like it’s been shoehorned into the narrative: it’s organic, flowing naturally to build up a story of people living, loving, dreaming—and perhaps someday returning, circling back to where they belong.
(From my review for The New Indian Express: https://www.newindianexpress.com/life...)
Tsering Yangzhom Lama’s We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies begins in this time, this space: as a small family—father, mother, their two young daughters—leave their home in a Tibetan village and set out for Nepal. The elder daughter Lhamo, not yet a teenager, ends up taking on perhaps more than her fair share of work as her mother, who is the local oracle, finds the best path for the village to follow: the safest, the most likely to bring them to a land where they will find peace and prosperity.
But will they? Can the Tibetans, ousted from their homeland, ever really settle down elsewhere? This is a question that crops up again and again in subtle ways all through Lama’s novel as it moves across fifty years and two continents. Divided into three parts, the book is always told in the first person, but the narrators change. In part 1, Daughters, the narrators are Lhamo in the early 1960s and her daughter Dolma, fifty years later in Canada. In part 2, Sisters, Lhamo and her sister Tenkyi continue the story, bridging the gap between Nepal (where Lhamo still lives) and Canada (where Tenkyi now lives with her niece Dolma). The last part, Lovers, is told from the point of view of Lhamo and of Samphel, the man whom she first came to know as a young teenager in a refugee camp in Nepal.
Thrown into the mix is a sacred artefact, a tiny statue made of mudstone, a ‘ku’ which finds its way into Lhamo’s family. The ‘Nameless Saint’, as he is known and venerated by Lhamo’s friends and family, is believed to have the power to make his way wherever he is most needed. How he travels, whether of his own accord or pushed and pulled by the humans around him, forms an important thread in this story.
While there are plenty of other characters—friends; relatives both near and distant; lovers; teachers—it is these four people, their lives intertwined, who form the core of the novel: Lhamo and Tenkyi, Samphel, Dolma. In their attempts to rebuild lives torn apart by displacement; their ache for stability, prosperity, love; the dreams that haunt them and the memories that pull them back towards a land that is no longer their own, they are very real, complex, three-dimensional.
They are, perhaps, too, symbolic of the Tibetans in general: a people in exile, permanently moving, ‘measuring the Earth with their bodies’. As Lama explains it, through the words of Dolma: “Of course, I knew about prostrations… I remember the story of one pilgrim who had even travelled across all of Tibet, from east to west, lying down and rising, over and over until he reached the yearly Kalachakra prayers in India…”. For Dolma herself, and for Tenkyi and Samphel to some extent, there is a need to travel in order to find truth and solace—if not for themselves, for those they care for—that is almost akin to the deep devotion needed for prostrations. Perhaps that is true for most Tibetans, suggests Lama: searching constantly, traversing the globe, trying to find a way back.
Not only is We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies deeply moving, it also serves to show something of the ethos of the Tibetan diaspora. These are a people who have been displaced for so long but have been forgotten. No foreign powers battle on their behalf, and they are overlooked when it comes to the global memory of human rights. Protests, petitions, self-immolations: these, and more, get swept away with the debris of everyday news, leaving little or no mark of their passage. Painfully few people outside of the Tibetan community know or value anything about them, other than their culture: those beautiful thangkas, the exquisite arts and crafts, the Tibetan chants.
But what lies beneath it all?
This novel serves to explain some of that in a gentle, sympathetic way that is very readable and at the same time informative. Never, however, does the information seem like it’s been shoehorned into the narrative: it’s organic, flowing naturally to build up a story of people living, loving, dreaming—and perhaps someday returning, circling back to where they belong.
(From my review for The New Indian Express: https://www.newindianexpress.com/life...)
June 10, 2024
I received this book as a part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Allow me to set the scene: it's early 2022. I've just rediscovered my love for reading. I'm dying to read anything and everything. Goodreads has giveaways that are free to enter, so I decide to just enter all of them if they remotely interest me. This was, like, maybe the second book I won.
As I got back into reading and refined my taste, this book fell to the bottom of my priority list. I just could not bring myself to read it. I never saw anyone else say anything about it. No one knew what it was. Not to mention it starts in 1950s/60s Tibetan - that's really intimidating for a dummy like me.
Except every summer I end up moving apartments and make a TBR of the books I need to read or unhaul. And that's how We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies finally came to be read.
First of all, talk about accessible. I usually steer from historical fiction, especially historical fiction set in different countries because of how easy it is for me to get lost, confused, or disinterested. This one had me HOOKED.
A beautiful multigenerational tale of culture, family, womanhood, sacrifices, secrets, suffering, and everything in between. I can't even begin to summarize this one, I can just say it was painful and lovely.
Go read the books that intimidate you. Read the books outside of your comfort zone. Screw it, read this one.
3.5 rounded up.
Allow me to set the scene: it's early 2022. I've just rediscovered my love for reading. I'm dying to read anything and everything. Goodreads has giveaways that are free to enter, so I decide to just enter all of them if they remotely interest me. This was, like, maybe the second book I won.
As I got back into reading and refined my taste, this book fell to the bottom of my priority list. I just could not bring myself to read it. I never saw anyone else say anything about it. No one knew what it was. Not to mention it starts in 1950s/60s Tibetan - that's really intimidating for a dummy like me.
Except every summer I end up moving apartments and make a TBR of the books I need to read or unhaul. And that's how We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies finally came to be read.
First of all, talk about accessible. I usually steer from historical fiction, especially historical fiction set in different countries because of how easy it is for me to get lost, confused, or disinterested. This one had me HOOKED.
A beautiful multigenerational tale of culture, family, womanhood, sacrifices, secrets, suffering, and everything in between. I can't even begin to summarize this one, I can just say it was painful and lovely.
Go read the books that intimidate you. Read the books outside of your comfort zone. Screw it, read this one.
3.5 rounded up.
June 4, 2022
We Measure the Earth is nothing less than an honor song and love letter to all bhoepas. It depicts with heart the joys and sorrows of a life (and many lives) in exile, and is a reverberating meditation on the relations we forge in fracture while yearning for return. This book is part of a lineage of tibetan hope and I dream of many more like it.
January 22, 2023
What a stellar novel, written by a first time author. The history and tragedies of the Chinese invasion of Tibet is told through the eyes of 2 sisters as they travel through Nepal, ending up in a refugee camp. Their spirituality guides them, along with the Nameless Saint, a statue which disappears. This statue stirs up memories of the past, ignites curiosity and brings family together, who have been separated by time, misunderstandings, silence and a quest for education.
these characters and carefully chosen prose brings history to life and I learned of events that I was not aware of through storytelling.
This book was on the short-list for the Giller prize and having read the winner, if it had been up to me, I would have chosen We Measure the Earth.
these characters and carefully chosen prose brings history to life and I learned of events that I was not aware of through storytelling.
This book was on the short-list for the Giller prize and having read the winner, if it had been up to me, I would have chosen We Measure the Earth.
May 7, 2022
"We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies" is an eye-opening look at Tibet in the 1950s, and what happens after the Chinese invasion forces Tibetans to leave their home. Young Lhamo and her family are forced to flee to a refugee camp near Nepal, and the treacherous causes her to lose both of her parents. With her and her younger sister Tenkyi as the remainder of their family, they're forced to rely on the community around them to survive. Decades later, the two are separated across the ocean and wind up living very different lives - but a chance occurrence leads to their reunion and a chance at coming to terms with their past.
I appreciated how this novel highlighted such a painful point in history, and its lasting impact on the Tibetan people. There's an incredible amount of loss and tragedy that occurs even in just the first few chapters of this novel, and leads readers to develop awe and appreciation at Lhamo's and Tenkyi's will to survive - even at such a young age. The later parts of the novel give us a chance to see them as their older and more mature, and coming to terms to living in exile and dealing with the sheer amount of loss they've gone through. There's a number of heavy and weighty topics that are covered in this novel, and are handled with care and compassion by the author.
What I struggled with, however, was the writing style; passages didn't flow well, sentences felt too terse and clipped, and moments of great loss and sorrow didn't have the emotional weight that they could have. I struggled to get through this novel at times given how slow the pacing seemed at times, which I felt detracted from the overall story.
I appreciated how this novel highlighted such a painful point in history, and its lasting impact on the Tibetan people. There's an incredible amount of loss and tragedy that occurs even in just the first few chapters of this novel, and leads readers to develop awe and appreciation at Lhamo's and Tenkyi's will to survive - even at such a young age. The later parts of the novel give us a chance to see them as their older and more mature, and coming to terms to living in exile and dealing with the sheer amount of loss they've gone through. There's a number of heavy and weighty topics that are covered in this novel, and are handled with care and compassion by the author.
What I struggled with, however, was the writing style; passages didn't flow well, sentences felt too terse and clipped, and moments of great loss and sorrow didn't have the emotional weight that they could have. I struggled to get through this novel at times given how slow the pacing seemed at times, which I felt detracted from the overall story.
August 8, 2022
I’m so glad I read this book, because it’s probably going to be in my top favourites of the year - it’s going to stay with me for a long while.
This book is a sweeping family saga that’s split between the 1950s-80s, and 2012, mainly about two sisters who grew up being displaced from their home, travelling to a refugee camp, and then slowly living separate lives. One sister, Tenkyi, had a promising future but now lives in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood doing various jobs. Lhamo still lives at the refugee camp, where she sells handmade jewelry to tourists to support her and her daughter, Dolma, who we meet at Toronto with her aunt Tenkyi.
I really loved the form that this book took- each section was split into two POVs, one always being Lhamo, but the other one was first Dolma, then Tenkyi, and then Samphel. The ending was a beautiful and profound journey that I appreciate reading about - normally, you’d expect an author to end a book at a certain point, but not this one. It kept going to really drive home the point about what it means to be displaced in this world so violently decades ago.
Rich in description and historical realities, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies is such a powerful debut and an all-too real look at the realities of Tibet refugees, and their tragic history that has affected generations.
This book is a sweeping family saga that’s split between the 1950s-80s, and 2012, mainly about two sisters who grew up being displaced from their home, travelling to a refugee camp, and then slowly living separate lives. One sister, Tenkyi, had a promising future but now lives in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood doing various jobs. Lhamo still lives at the refugee camp, where she sells handmade jewelry to tourists to support her and her daughter, Dolma, who we meet at Toronto with her aunt Tenkyi.
I really loved the form that this book took- each section was split into two POVs, one always being Lhamo, but the other one was first Dolma, then Tenkyi, and then Samphel. The ending was a beautiful and profound journey that I appreciate reading about - normally, you’d expect an author to end a book at a certain point, but not this one. It kept going to really drive home the point about what it means to be displaced in this world so violently decades ago.
Rich in description and historical realities, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies is such a powerful debut and an all-too real look at the realities of Tibet refugees, and their tragic history that has affected generations.
October 10, 2022
I have to be honest in my rating - it is a 3.5 star read for me = very good. It was very good. But there is a "but" for me with this one. I never truly felt compelled or moved to want to be reading it. It is beautifully written, there is no denying this, and the story is a good one, an interesting one (a story about people being removed from their place, their land, and the generational impact this has on family members...is just one aspect of what this book is about.) but I felt like it was taking me forever to get through it.
I'm sitting here now wondering, do I actually place (for me) Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century above this one? Is it one the Giller judges would place above this one, so edging Monsters closer to be the winning choice? Tomorrow I get The Sleeping Car Porter and I think after finishing that one I'll have a better or clearer choice for what I would choose as the Giller winner this year.
I'm sitting here now wondering, do I actually place (for me) Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century above this one? Is it one the Giller judges would place above this one, so edging Monsters closer to be the winning choice? Tomorrow I get The Sleeping Car Porter and I think after finishing that one I'll have a better or clearer choice for what I would choose as the Giller winner this year.
March 27, 2022
This family epic, spanning 50 years, three countries, illustrates love, loss, and longing for family and country. These two sisters survive being uprooted and forced migration after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the late 1950s. What was especially well done, were the conversations that a Dolma, the daughter of one of the sisters and a university student, has with white scholars of her country, and what their responsibilities could be if they looked at the macro and not the micro. And, how a country, people and way of life are romanticized which. has no bearing as to the reality of the people who live the experience.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
February 24, 2022
A multi-generational tale of exile and longing; how is one to find a homeland after being forced out of it? How does the longing to return alter across generations, each one being born farther from the land and further from the customs. These are the questions that root themselves beneath a tale of two sisters, young girls during the invasion of Tibet, who grow up in camps in Nepal and are split apart with wanderlust and a re-calling of their homeland. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking novel that offers a glimpse at an impossible decision and its repercussions over fifty years.
July 2, 2022
This is a beautiful and immersive multigenerational tale of a Tibetan family displaced by Chinese occupation. They are set adrift to seek safety, while also struggling to retain their identity, traditions, language, and dignity after being cut off from their homeland, left without a country, trapped in exile.
It begins with Lhamo and her sister Tenkyi leaving home as children with their parents, who would soon pass away along their journey, leaving the girls orphaned. The story jumps between these sisters and the struggles of their youth, and the present day when Lhamo's daughter Dolma is a college student in Toronto. A few threads run between these two timelines, one of thr most prominent being that of the Nameless Saint who is believed to disappear at will and reappear to those who need him.
Much of the book is slow-paced, richly immersive, and drenched in beautiful descriptions, ancient culture and tradition, and the depths of loss felt by refugees severed from their ancestral homelands. It poses a number of difficult questions, from how white academics of European descent impose their "expertise" of other cultures over those who actually hold those identities, to the black market trade of ancient cultural and religious artifacts, to the limbo of being unable to forget one's motherland but unable to return as well. It was beautifully written, and I was particularly swept away by the ending.
I have to acknowledge that there were times when I had difficulty with the slow pacing. But I do think that this slow, patient, graceful, and layered exploration of culture and loss was well worth sticking with. Like being immersed in a cool, still pond on a summer day, it was at once painful and peaceful, patient and urgent, heartbreaking and hopeful.
4.5 stars
It begins with Lhamo and her sister Tenkyi leaving home as children with their parents, who would soon pass away along their journey, leaving the girls orphaned. The story jumps between these sisters and the struggles of their youth, and the present day when Lhamo's daughter Dolma is a college student in Toronto. A few threads run between these two timelines, one of thr most prominent being that of the Nameless Saint who is believed to disappear at will and reappear to those who need him.
Much of the book is slow-paced, richly immersive, and drenched in beautiful descriptions, ancient culture and tradition, and the depths of loss felt by refugees severed from their ancestral homelands. It poses a number of difficult questions, from how white academics of European descent impose their "expertise" of other cultures over those who actually hold those identities, to the black market trade of ancient cultural and religious artifacts, to the limbo of being unable to forget one's motherland but unable to return as well. It was beautifully written, and I was particularly swept away by the ending.
I have to acknowledge that there were times when I had difficulty with the slow pacing. But I do think that this slow, patient, graceful, and layered exploration of culture and loss was well worth sticking with. Like being immersed in a cool, still pond on a summer day, it was at once painful and peaceful, patient and urgent, heartbreaking and hopeful.
4.5 stars
October 8, 2022
It took me a while to become engaged, stylistically this felt very conventional and at times didactic, but it became quite affecting toward the final third and offered some thoughtful insight and criticism of how Western societies worship Tibetan ideas and artifacts, but for the most part ignore the suffering of the people.
July 11, 2022
Author Tsering Yangzom Lama has crafted a powerful, moving story spanning from China's invasion of Tibet to 2012. Centering the story on two sisters, and eventually the daughter of the elder sister, the author Incorporates a number of weighty ideas, such as
-attempted eradication of Tibetan culture
-Refugees and statelessness
-Grief
-Immigration
-Western perception of Asian cultures
-Cultural appropriation by western institutions, and how and where to restore stolen artifacts
-The difficulty in sustaining one's heritage as a member of a diaspora
I loved this book. It was suffused with loss, missed connections, grief, and three brilliantly conceived characters. Elder sister Lhamo and younger Tenkyi suffer the loss of their parents when they must flee Tibet. They hear how monks are being attacked, and temples are destroyed by the Chinese, and they grow up in a refugee camp. Lhamo sees an ancient statue, called the Nameless Saint, when a young man, Samphel, and his uncle bring it to the camp. It's a critical piece of their heritage saved from the violence inflicted by the Chinese. Lhamo and Samphel feel a connection, but he disappears from her life.
Tenkyi studies to be a teacher, and years later, immigrates to Toronto, where Lhamo's daughter Dolma later arrives, to become a scholar of Tibet Studies. The irony is not lost on her, as Dalmo must come to Canada to find her heritage, while Tenkyi suffers from bad memories of her time many years earlier. Dalmo also comes across the Nameless Saint, evoking many relevant questions in her about who has the right to own this: museums or private collectors who don't care about the provenance, or the diaspora, to whom this is not just a religious symbol but seen as a living saint?
There is so much longing in the characters for: their former land, love, a past, lost loved ones, and connections to a place and one's heritage. And it's all told with an undercurrent of grief. It's a lovely book.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.
-attempted eradication of Tibetan culture
-Refugees and statelessness
-Grief
-Immigration
-Western perception of Asian cultures
-Cultural appropriation by western institutions, and how and where to restore stolen artifacts
-The difficulty in sustaining one's heritage as a member of a diaspora
I loved this book. It was suffused with loss, missed connections, grief, and three brilliantly conceived characters. Elder sister Lhamo and younger Tenkyi suffer the loss of their parents when they must flee Tibet. They hear how monks are being attacked, and temples are destroyed by the Chinese, and they grow up in a refugee camp. Lhamo sees an ancient statue, called the Nameless Saint, when a young man, Samphel, and his uncle bring it to the camp. It's a critical piece of their heritage saved from the violence inflicted by the Chinese. Lhamo and Samphel feel a connection, but he disappears from her life.
Tenkyi studies to be a teacher, and years later, immigrates to Toronto, where Lhamo's daughter Dolma later arrives, to become a scholar of Tibet Studies. The irony is not lost on her, as Dalmo must come to Canada to find her heritage, while Tenkyi suffers from bad memories of her time many years earlier. Dalmo also comes across the Nameless Saint, evoking many relevant questions in her about who has the right to own this: museums or private collectors who don't care about the provenance, or the diaspora, to whom this is not just a religious symbol but seen as a living saint?
There is so much longing in the characters for: their former land, love, a past, lost loved ones, and connections to a place and one's heritage. And it's all told with an undercurrent of grief. It's a lovely book.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.
May 14, 2022
A moodily atmospheric family epic of Tibetan exile. Lhamo and her younger sister Tenkyi trek across the Himalayas to Nepal with their mother, a visionary, and father after the Chinese invade Tibet. Unfortunately, their parents do not survive and they find themselves being cared for such as it is by an uncle until they are separated. Lhamo as the older is responsible for the house while Tenkyi studies- and she's able later to go to Delhi for university- while Lhamo is sent to tend to an aunt who has lost her own children. Lhamo is fascinated by Samphel but marries another man, who drinks and disappears. Her daughter Dolma makes it to university in Toronto, where Tenkyi has emigrated and it is there that she finds the ka which had been so important to their family for so long. This starts in 1959 and then moves back and forth between the 1960s and the relative present and between the characters. Know that at times it feels as though you've missed something and that it is not a breakneck read. That said, it's a fascinating look at Tibetan culture and beliefs with intriguing characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.
April 6, 2023
This book is a beautiful exploration of family, tradition, culture, and the nature of holding onto all of these fleeting things that so easily escape us. Lama paints vivid landscapes in different locations, time periods, and historical events, with distinct voices taking ownership of their interconnected stories to tell.
I loved the imagery throughout the novel but I found that some of the dialogue felt disconnected for me, pulling me out of the story at hand and making some to the character relationships seem less genuine. Very minor thing, but just something I noticed while reading.
Overall, Lama is definitely one to watch and she has presented a timeless and moving 50-year-saga that flows effortlessly (it sort of reminded me of American Dirt in some ways… so if you like that one, maybe give this novel a try!)
I loved the imagery throughout the novel but I found that some of the dialogue felt disconnected for me, pulling me out of the story at hand and making some to the character relationships seem less genuine. Very minor thing, but just something I noticed while reading.
Overall, Lama is definitely one to watch and she has presented a timeless and moving 50-year-saga that flows effortlessly (it sort of reminded me of American Dirt in some ways… so if you like that one, maybe give this novel a try!)
June 7, 2022
This book is a treasure. Beautifully written, lived, researched. The leaps between several points in time braid together in a way that leaves you with a multidimensional view of the story and the characters that left me with tender love for each of them.
Read
January 16, 2023This is an incredible novel written about a Tibetan protagonist, who seeks refuge in Canada after the CCP's violent conquest of her homeland overturns their way of life, destroying their temples and golden statues and cultural goods, shooting monks and nuns, adopting children forcibly to habituate them to the occupiers' culture, razing their agriculture and taking their sheep and oxen, killing their families, using their scriptures as tissue paper, reshaping their holiest sanctuaries into empty fantasy theme parks. While studying in Canada, navigating the identity of the asylum seeker in a foreign land of riches, the protagonist, a budding scholar, discovers that her local community's venerated statue of a homeland saint has been bought for loan and ogling in museums. This triggers a crisis over the overwhelming internal call to bring the saint home, to rescue and repossess a totem of home and identity for a displaced people. While the protagonist is dealing with this dilemma, other chapters cover the stories of her close family, now a diaspora in India and Nepal, grappling for livelihoods and the questions of love and family.
This is a very good book, among many reasons being its nuance. It shows the internal dialogues and debates taking place in the Tibetan diaspora: the older generation want to maintain a homogenous message of protest and the reinstatement of the Dalai Lama, while the younger generation are restless with the old guard, wondering where their trust in monks and prayer beads instead of bullets or radical action has brought them.
The protagonist is also nuanced in her understanding of the Western world. She muses with affection, gratitude and respect the immeasurable kindness and generosity of her benefactors and indeed her sponsor country. The impact of the magnanimity of a chain of Western sponsors and supportive tutors is undeniable on her life trajectory. At the same time she is contemplating that 'they ask for nothing at all un return, except silent (gratitude)'. In her opinion, and the opinion of her first-generation aunt, the benevolent country does not want an equal exchange with them; in fact, it wants nothing from them in return for all the charity, except the polite distance of a supplicant. While this is very kind, in her view, the protagonist says she yearns to be an equal; she yearns to have a voice, to be an equal scholar to them whose works have calculable impact on the academic perception of Tibet.
Furthermore, she is wrestling with the central question, of who has rights to cultural goods. The curator of the Canadian gallery who purchased the statue on behalf of an art-collecting family, believes that rights lie with the person who paid the money, not just to take the statue but in effect paid to preserve and safekeep the priceless cultural artifact; meanwhile the protagonist's claim is strong, due to the fact that her people have made it, her people have bound it, they have been inspired by it and have suffered and lain their lives for it.
This is a very interesting book. Personally, I think the Western world sometimes doesn't get enough credit for the good it does and tries to do. It's good to read and learn people's viewpoints.
This is a very good book, among many reasons being its nuance. It shows the internal dialogues and debates taking place in the Tibetan diaspora: the older generation want to maintain a homogenous message of protest and the reinstatement of the Dalai Lama, while the younger generation are restless with the old guard, wondering where their trust in monks and prayer beads instead of bullets or radical action has brought them.
The protagonist is also nuanced in her understanding of the Western world. She muses with affection, gratitude and respect the immeasurable kindness and generosity of her benefactors and indeed her sponsor country. The impact of the magnanimity of a chain of Western sponsors and supportive tutors is undeniable on her life trajectory. At the same time she is contemplating that 'they ask for nothing at all un return, except silent (gratitude)'. In her opinion, and the opinion of her first-generation aunt, the benevolent country does not want an equal exchange with them; in fact, it wants nothing from them in return for all the charity, except the polite distance of a supplicant. While this is very kind, in her view, the protagonist says she yearns to be an equal; she yearns to have a voice, to be an equal scholar to them whose works have calculable impact on the academic perception of Tibet.
Furthermore, she is wrestling with the central question, of who has rights to cultural goods. The curator of the Canadian gallery who purchased the statue on behalf of an art-collecting family, believes that rights lie with the person who paid the money, not just to take the statue but in effect paid to preserve and safekeep the priceless cultural artifact; meanwhile the protagonist's claim is strong, due to the fact that her people have made it, her people have bound it, they have been inspired by it and have suffered and lain their lives for it.
This is a very interesting book. Personally, I think the Western world sometimes doesn't get enough credit for the good it does and tries to do. It's good to read and learn people's viewpoints.
August 21, 2023
Tsering Yangzom Lama's debut novel, We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies, comes much-garlanded, having been shortlisted for the Giller Prize and longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize. I picked it up in Toronto because I was attracted by learning more about the experience of Tibetan exiles: it follows sisters Lhamo and Tenkyi, who flee Tibet for Nepal in 1960 following the Chinese invasion, and Lhamo's daughter, Dolma, who was born in a Nepalese refugee camp but is now trying to pursue graduate studies in ancient Tibetan history in Toronto. I should say from the start that this book is by no means terrible: in many ways, it's worth reading. But I was so disappointed that this very much falls into the familiar rut of the 'inter-generational history of a non-Western family novel', despite the important things it has to say about the dispossession and colonialisation of Tibet, both by China and by white 'experts'.
The early Dolma sections illustrate this cruelty beautifully, as Dolma tries to carry on an academic debate about the Chinese occupation with a white Canadian anthropologist who doesn't realise that she has literally lived this history. As an exiled Tibetan, it would be far harder for her to ever visit the country than him, as she tries to explain: 'Can't you see how much power you have to shape the discourse? Much more than any Tibetan... I want to be a scholar. All my life, I've wanted to study my people. Our history, ideas and literature. But I've never known how to make it happen. How can I study Tibet without access to it?' Dolma sees things differently than the 'experts' she encounters: while they see termas, or 'treasure texts', simply as primary sources from which to mine the history of the Buddhist Empire, for example, Dolma knows these can be 'mind termas', or 'psychic treasures', which exist in physical spaces like caves, lakes or temples, passing on wisdom to the next generation.
I would have loved to read an entire novel about Dolma, but most of the rest of We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies follows traditional 'family saga' lines, with characters differentiated solely by their roles in the family - sacrificial parents, responsible older sister, love interest - and the storytelling thin in the sections set in the Nepalese camp. Lama faithfully depicts the life lived by Tibetan refugees but this all feels distanced and emotionless. The handling of chronology is awkward, too, with the sections narrated by Tenkyi, for example, heavily reliant on flashbacks which, in their turn, are deliberately vague to avoid spoiling parts of the story that are narrated by Lhamo later on. Again, I thought this could have been fantastic if it had focused on Tenkyi and Dolma in Toronto and told their story in a simpler chronological order, as Dolma gradually learns about her family history after finding the object that makes her realise just how much has been taken from them. I feel like I've been giving this same summing up for so many novels, but it holds true here: while I learnt a lot from We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies, it didn't really work for me as fiction. 3.5 stars.
The early Dolma sections illustrate this cruelty beautifully, as Dolma tries to carry on an academic debate about the Chinese occupation with a white Canadian anthropologist who doesn't realise that she has literally lived this history. As an exiled Tibetan, it would be far harder for her to ever visit the country than him, as she tries to explain: 'Can't you see how much power you have to shape the discourse? Much more than any Tibetan... I want to be a scholar. All my life, I've wanted to study my people. Our history, ideas and literature. But I've never known how to make it happen. How can I study Tibet without access to it?' Dolma sees things differently than the 'experts' she encounters: while they see termas, or 'treasure texts', simply as primary sources from which to mine the history of the Buddhist Empire, for example, Dolma knows these can be 'mind termas', or 'psychic treasures', which exist in physical spaces like caves, lakes or temples, passing on wisdom to the next generation.
I would have loved to read an entire novel about Dolma, but most of the rest of We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies follows traditional 'family saga' lines, with characters differentiated solely by their roles in the family - sacrificial parents, responsible older sister, love interest - and the storytelling thin in the sections set in the Nepalese camp. Lama faithfully depicts the life lived by Tibetan refugees but this all feels distanced and emotionless. The handling of chronology is awkward, too, with the sections narrated by Tenkyi, for example, heavily reliant on flashbacks which, in their turn, are deliberately vague to avoid spoiling parts of the story that are narrated by Lhamo later on. Again, I thought this could have been fantastic if it had focused on Tenkyi and Dolma in Toronto and told their story in a simpler chronological order, as Dolma gradually learns about her family history after finding the object that makes her realise just how much has been taken from them. I feel like I've been giving this same summing up for so many novels, but it holds true here: while I learnt a lot from We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies, it didn't really work for me as fiction. 3.5 stars.
December 7, 2023
When many think of Tibet, the Dalai Lama and his message of transformation comes to mind. The mystical and almost mythical people of that homeland have been framed in our minds, as iconic as their reincarnated spiritual leader. “We Measure the Earth with our Bodies” is not that novel. It is dark, filled with the aching loss of those people whose country was overtaken brutally, while they were reduced to refugees in Nepal or homeless and aching, rootless. It is a novel of disenfranchisement, of a nation of people who have become invisible told through the personal stories of Lhamo and Tenkyi, daughter Dolma who studies in Canada. It is heartbreaking, filled with love and occasional moments of hope.
I’d wished to be further educated, as I often am through historical fiction, in this case about Tibet. I did not anticipate the sorrow I would find in this story- and especially the sadness that Tibetans and their plight would fade into nothingness over time. China has walled them out of their own country. It is a grievous situation and the characters in this novel chipped away at my heart and shamed me for my ignorance.
Every new immigrant we meet has a story. Some are tragic. This novel tells one of them.
Strong four stars.
I’d wished to be further educated, as I often am through historical fiction, in this case about Tibet. I did not anticipate the sorrow I would find in this story- and especially the sadness that Tibetans and their plight would fade into nothingness over time. China has walled them out of their own country. It is a grievous situation and the characters in this novel chipped away at my heart and shamed me for my ignorance.
Every new immigrant we meet has a story. Some are tragic. This novel tells one of them.
Strong four stars.
December 8, 2022
Nothing lasts for long, not even the past. P320
Exquisitely told, this a tale of Tibet in its grandeur and misery as thousands were forced from their homes by the invasion of their sacred lands.
...they all disappeared so easily, behind a hill, as if they had never existed at all. P61
But they did not disappear entirely; those who survived the severe journey created new lives for themselves in exile, even as their hopes for return began to fade.
From far away it may look like we're standing still, but we are all traveling great distances forging our fates. P223
TYL traces the fate of one such family over 3 generations of exile, skillfully and with vivid immediacy weaving the panoramic with minute detail.
...the golden light on the mountain at dawn as pilgrims began their prostrations, lying on the ground in supplication for their sins (they) stretch their arms forward, mark the earth with their fingers, stand up, walk to that mark...lie down again. For weeks they circled the mountain in this manner...symbolic of death and rebirth. P88
TYL reminds us that rebirth can happen before death in the renewal of frayed or lost connections.
We could all go mad if we let ourselves....But you've survived, so you need to keep on living. That's all there is. P136
The land will remain. Long after our own brief, flickering lights fade, these mountains, these plains, this wind will persist. P345
For those of us who cannot return home, all the world is a dream. P112
Exquisitely told, this a tale of Tibet in its grandeur and misery as thousands were forced from their homes by the invasion of their sacred lands.
...they all disappeared so easily, behind a hill, as if they had never existed at all. P61
But they did not disappear entirely; those who survived the severe journey created new lives for themselves in exile, even as their hopes for return began to fade.
From far away it may look like we're standing still, but we are all traveling great distances forging our fates. P223
TYL traces the fate of one such family over 3 generations of exile, skillfully and with vivid immediacy weaving the panoramic with minute detail.
...the golden light on the mountain at dawn as pilgrims began their prostrations, lying on the ground in supplication for their sins (they) stretch their arms forward, mark the earth with their fingers, stand up, walk to that mark...lie down again. For weeks they circled the mountain in this manner...symbolic of death and rebirth. P88
TYL reminds us that rebirth can happen before death in the renewal of frayed or lost connections.
We could all go mad if we let ourselves....But you've survived, so you need to keep on living. That's all there is. P136
The land will remain. Long after our own brief, flickering lights fade, these mountains, these plains, this wind will persist. P345
For those of us who cannot return home, all the world is a dream. P112
May 29, 2023
*I've decided I won't write long book reviews for books under two stars unless it's a rant or I have a lot to say!*
<< *Every single person in this world can view a work of literature and have completely different thoughts and opinions. My opinion is not meant to offend you. If you do not want to see a review criticizing your favourite book (or a book you enjoyed), then I recommend not proceeding with reading this review.>>
Quotes:
"I also worried that my blood woulld be the color of their flag, which now flew over every house and even our monastery. Let my blood be white, I prayed. Let it be the color of the gods, white like the khata scarves of our people. But I have seen that everyone's blood is the same color. When it flows, when it merges, blood is nameless."
"Why do you spend your days dismantling these texts, seeking the humans in the gods. But I am not looking for the humans in the gods. I don't want to lock those saints to the mundane."
While I could see that Tsering Yangzom Lama had a lot to say and a story to tell, I couldn't find myself invested. This story just wasn't captivating/engaging for me. The characters felt monotone all blurring together while the different perspectives didn't feel like it added a lot to the plot. In conclusion, it just wasn't the book for me.
🆗PLOT
⛔CHARACTERS
<< *Every single person in this world can view a work of literature and have completely different thoughts and opinions. My opinion is not meant to offend you. If you do not want to see a review criticizing your favourite book (or a book you enjoyed), then I recommend not proceeding with reading this review.>>
Quotes:
"I also worried that my blood woulld be the color of their flag, which now flew over every house and even our monastery. Let my blood be white, I prayed. Let it be the color of the gods, white like the khata scarves of our people. But I have seen that everyone's blood is the same color. When it flows, when it merges, blood is nameless."
"Why do you spend your days dismantling these texts, seeking the humans in the gods. But I am not looking for the humans in the gods. I don't want to lock those saints to the mundane."
While I could see that Tsering Yangzom Lama had a lot to say and a story to tell, I couldn't find myself invested. This story just wasn't captivating/engaging for me. The characters felt monotone all blurring together while the different perspectives didn't feel like it added a lot to the plot. In conclusion, it just wasn't the book for me.
🆗PLOT
⛔CHARACTERS
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