Kumar's retelling of the tale of Angulimala is not especially poetic--if we are seeking a lush tale like we may find in the verse of Tagore or Neruda seek something besides what this book offers: a capsule of the Buddhist thought, a healthy reflection on guilt and redemption, and the challenges to leadership.

Also, and this is not a spoiler, the redemption of our terrorist whose name means "Necklace of Fingers" happens quickly and early in the tale. One, after all, does not meet the Buddha and remain unmoved. Could it happen this way? Could a genuine terrorist be so undone after a single conversation? It's an intriguing idea, but again this is not the center of the book. Instead we begin the book with the encounter with a principle: that we are victims to our attachments, whether property or past traumas. This is not a realization that happens after a single conversation (or even years of them, in my experience), but it sets up Kumar's larger story.

The story isn't really about the terrorist's conversion, at all--it is about our own. What do we, as individuals and communities, understand about justice and forgiveness? A great evil is committed against us: how must we respond? This is not a moment, at least, for the "Christian forgiveness" which even now divides the Judeo-Christian-Islamist ethic. It has much more to do with our own desires, our own attachments, about peace. 

Yes, Kumar's version is motivated a bit by our contemporary crises, and yes, he has made choices of his own in how to tell it. So have others across history. This is what writers do with story. The more important question is what readers do with it. And for myself, the teaching is critical, though I am slow slow to learn; hence my rating and my regular re-reading.