Afterzen

Janwillem van de Wetering is an extraordinary writer, as readers familiar with his works know, whether he is writing as a student of Zen or recounting the adventures of the distinctively different Amsterdam cops who poulate his mystery novels. In Afterzen, third book of a beloved trilogy that began with The Empty Mirror and A Glimpse of Nothingness, van de Wetering provides unorthodox solutions to a collection of classical koans found in Walter Nowick's The Wisteria Tangle. Van de Wetering gives them his own distinctive touch of humor, down-to-earth reality, and tough spirituality in the context of meetings and adventures with personalities "collaged from bits and pieces of teachers and fellow students who kindly came my way." However, the dream or actual presence of his first teacher, Roshi, "a sage illuminated by humorous equanimity," is "as true to life as my malfunctioning keyboard dares to describe."

As one interviewer put it, van de Wetering "lost his childhood when World War II began." Most of the students in young Janwillem's private school in Rotterdam, where his father was a wealthy businessman, were Jewish and died in Treblinka. It was this and other harrowing wartime experiences that led to the author's seeking answers in directions as varied as joining a motorcycle gang and studying philosophy, and that would finally take him to Zen centers in several parts of the world. In this third book of his trilogy, van de Wetering is a his accessible, honest, and genuinely spiritual best.