Maya

A Novel

By: C. W. Huntington

Narrated by: C. W. Huntington

A stunning debut novel on sex, loss, and redemption.

It is 1975 and India is in turmoil. American Stanley Harrington arrives to study Sanskrit philosophy and escape his failing marriage. When he finds himself witness to a violent accident, he begins to question his grip on reality.

Maya introduces us to an entertaining cast of hippies, expats, and Indians of all walks of life. From a hermit hiding in the Himalayan jungle since the days of the British Raj, to an accountant at the Bank of India with a passion for Sanskrit poetry, to the last in a line of brahman scholars, Stanley's path ultimately leads him to a Tibetan yogi, who enlists the American's help in translating a mysterious ancient text.

Maya, literally "illusion", is an extended meditation on the unraveling of identity. Filled with rich observations and arresting reflections, it mines the porous border between memory and imagination.

©2015 C. W. Huntington (P)2016 C. W. Huntington

Detail pictures of a very different time and place

Can a man who neglected his relationship this much be capable of such depths of thought?
This book at times is hard to explain in the beginning. He's looking back at his journey and looking back from looking back.
1975 India is not what this man expected when he arrived. It was hot, had more bugs, disease, death, kids torturing animals in the streets, and an unfairness where people don't care to help a white guy out, like to get the correct forms after standing in a hot line for hours.
I looked by chapter 5 and was correct that the author was also the narrator. You can feel his calm and soothing connection to the book. He sounds perfectly fitting for the character, like an intelligent man, kinda sad, but certainly a person studying philosophy and reflecting on how empty he was in his marriage and without his wife. His voice is caring, soft and just perfect.
I am again surprised by another male character who has been meditating for years and yet still has this greed, anger, and lack of self awareness in the beginning of the book. My meditation practice, my, my spiritual practice, my search, me, me, me, and it took years for him to see it. Ego.
It has come up in books like this enough that I'm starting to believe it can happen and I've read that it can take months and years for meditation and mindfulness to change a person, but I felt changed by it almost immediately, within weeks of a regular practice.
It's been easier for me to absorb more buddhist inspired information in story format, fiction or non-fiction and I like this one.
His vivid explanations help me see into a time and place I've never been but occasionally I do look up something I don't know, like a rope charpoy. Other times I wish I had the actual book to look up an author or ancient person or place as I'm not spelling a few things correctly, hearing it correctly, or they don't exist.
Things that don't sound legit, like Gupta administrative policy as a research topic, most definitely are and get me down a rabbit hole.
By nearly the end of the book you see how the character develops into a person who is savvy enough to navigate this time and place and has earned the respect of the locals by learning the language. He truly evolves and finds himself.
Some of it seems so real that I investigate to find that the author/narrator did in fact spend a lot of time in India, do a lot of great things in his career, and sadly died in 2020 so I won't get to hear more great books from him as I was hoping.
This one ends kinda abruptly, like his life. It feels like there was just more story to tell even though it was really long.