Lama, now in paperback, traces Crane's adventures as a writer, wanderer, and anarchic but still failing student of Zen. It begins in 1996 at the edge of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia, where he and his teacher and friend, Zen Master Tsung Tsai, are forced by a sandstorm to end their quest to find the lost temple at Two Wolf Mountain. It continues with a harrowing, near disastrous attempt to deliver a ratty, 58 foot ferrous cement sailboat to Granada. Setting sail from Key Largo into the heart of hurricane season, with a crew of eccentrics and outlaws, led by the infamous Captain Bananas. They run with a disintegrating sailboat into the perfect squall. The tale ends in the winter of 2003, when after weeks of desert travel, Crane and his companions–––the nomad Jumaand and the young, beautiful Mongol girl Oka, his bed mate and bodyguard–––stand beneath the remote cliffs of Delgaz Khaan in Outer Mongolia's South Gobi. Here, Crane, after burying his long dead father, sets out on a new quest, looking to find what the nomads call Windhorse, "the beginning of the wind," but finds what every nomad knows, that every road is more a direction than a destination.
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 Riding the crest of his prior success--a disappointment September 8, 2008
"The Bones of the Master" is a highly-accomplished book and well deserving of the highest accolades. Mr. Crane's subsequent volume "Beyond the House of the False Lama" rides the crest of this prior success, but proves to be a minor disappointment. I only wish his editor had had the sense to remind Crane that poetry was his calling. The subsequent book is a thinly connected hodge-podge, that might have made for several interesting magazine articles. Surely, this manuscript was not fit editorially for publication as a full book on its own merits. I concur with other reviewers who note the endless self-indulgence and juvenile tone. Let's not pretend that this book has anything to do with Zen, Buddhism or self-discovery.
 "the Rand McNally approach to self-discovery" June 23, 2007
After the tremendous impressions Crane left us with in his first book "Bones of the Master", on this offering we're left asking: "What happened George?"
This book starts off in disappointment mode - yet, if you work with George as he tries to shake off the wreckage of his 3rd marriage; if you stick with him as he tries to shake off his accumulated neurosis and persistant self-flagellating; if you cut him some major slack as he goes through his "Rand McNally approach to self-discovery" (Thomas McGuane) - then, just maybe, the value of his story begins to emerge.
Fleeing the disintegration of that 3rd marriage, Crane and a buddy end up crewing a boat off the Florida Keys - until the hurricane hits. Then he's like Forrest Gump and that other guy riding out that storm in the middle of the Caribbean. Surviving that, he goes to Paris where we endure his wound-licking and self-indulgent whining. And somehow towards the middle of the book, he makes it back to Mongolia, on a vaguely defined quest to find . . . what?
It is clear that George is adrift without his monk-friend Tsang Tsai from the first book. This narrative may very well be written for fellow mid-lifers who are in either pre- or post- crisis modes: tough to say.
Anyway, like "Journey to Ixtlan", this roller coaster (or perhaps a bronco ride) of a narrative is a metaphor for what is found in the search and the journey; the destination may yet be only a mirage.
As a writer, George Crane is still working out his Mojo - like a burner on the stove, one gets the feeling that he's just turned down the heat.
Although the leaping around in this book is formidible, if you perservere with the guy to the end, it is a pretty decent book.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
 A wonderful adventure May 12, 2007
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I see that some reviewers were not impressed with Crane's eagerly anticipated sequel. I must confess that I was! For one thing, the absence of Tsung-Tsai is not as glaring as some have suggested. His spirit is still very much with Crane; it's simply that Crane has, in some sense, moved on from being a disciple to becoming his own man. I, for one, think the title reflects this. Secondly, the prose in the sequel is far superior to that of the original. Is Crane self-indulgent? Of course! But that's the point! Crane, like a true Zen master, is detached from his own behaviour, and views it with an ironic sort of amusement. Above all, Crane's novel serves as an indictment of the holier-than-thou Buddhists and other saints who are incapable of simply appreciating life for what it is. And for that, we ought to be grateful.
mea culpa, mea culpa May 7, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
George Crane spends a lot of time whining about the person he is not, rather than examining the person he is. Some interesting story telling, but the self-involvement frequently gets in the way.
Possibly the most self-absorbed book I have ever read April 9, 2007
It is difficult to believe this is the same George Crane that penned "Bones of the Master." I can only believe the Fox has taken his soul along with his ability to tell a compelling story.
If you want to read about sex and drugs, I suggest Hunter S. Thompson or Charles Bukoski. If you want to read about Zen, see Robert Pirsig.
If you want to be bored, buy this book.
Sorry, I loved "Bones of the Master," but this author has lost his muse and seems proud of it.
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