Synopses & Reviews
As a young journalist, Elizabeth Kadetsky found herself running for hours every
day, eating little, and suffering from a troubling and persistent pain in her
chest. On a friend's advice, she applied to the yoga institute in India where
the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar takes in Western students for instruction.
First There Is a Mountain is a tale of the longing that brings an American
woman to the feet of the aging patriarch Iyengar, one of the first to share
the esoteric secrets of yoga with the West. Kadetsky soon learns that the yoga
she has practiced for years bears little resemblance to what she finds at the
institute. Here, earnest aspirants perform intricate postures and hang upside
down from ropes to explore the boundaries between the physical and the sublime.
In Iyengar's vast library and archives, in travels to his birthplace, and in
conversations with Iyengar himself, Kadetsky pieces together the unlikely life
journey of her teacher. In the process, she discovers a yoga that is part legend,
part sacred scripture, and part historical chimera. She explores, too, yoga's
role in transcending India's caste system, in nation-building, and as an emerging
cultural prize. Finally, she finds herself under Iyengar's touch, leaving behind
a discordant childhood and starvation regimens, and reaching for the subtle
wisdom of the body.
What began as a spiritual journey ends as something more: a memoir, a love
story, a portrait of a country caught between a mythical past and an ambiguous
modernity, and the biography of a man who pioneered the phenomenon of modern
yoga. First There Is a Mountain is a beautifully written and moving portrayal
of the endlessly fraught but utterly compelling dance of East and West.
Review
"Kadetsky's book seamlessly combines the emotions of a meaningful personal journey with a journalist's rigor and scope-I found it both inspiring and educational. Makes you want to get up on your feet and have a body." Aimee Bender, author of An Invisible Sign of My Own
Review
"Elizabeth Kadetsky brings her fierce intelligence and savvy style to bear on the most intimate and unmapped of literary territory: the body, pulling you into a journey both exotic and achingly familiar." Melanie Thernstrom, author of Halfway Heaven
Review
"Kadetsky offers an enthralling account of several journeys: into the history and practice of yoga, into the magical kingdom of B. K. S. Iyengar, yoga teacher extraordinary, and into her own complicated life. I felt privileged to accompany her." Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture
Review
"Kadetsky brings a good dose of journalistic skepticism to her own memoir, as well as writerly grace and beauty. The result is a most unusual book, reading at times as a political history, at times as a comedy of manners, at times as a vivid travelogue-but always as a deeply personal and strangely urgent tale of a woman and her body." Leah Hager Cohen, author of Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things
Review
"First There Is a Mountain gives yoga the respect and tough-minded scrutiny it deserves-shedding light on its murky history in India, its curious arrival in the West, and its limber masters who . . . proclaim themselves yoga's only authentic heir. This is a wonderful book-colorful, honest, smart and wise." Martha Sherrill, author of The Buddha from Brooklyn
Synopsis
- For the audience of Girl, Interrupted and Prozac Diary and the ever-growing audience for everything yoga.- Celebrities from Madonna to Gwyneth Paltrow have embraced this esoteric Indian practice.- Kadetsky's struggle with eating disorders and her efforts to find a way to resolve them through the dedicated practice of yoga will resonate with millions of women practitioners.