DISCOVERIES

Grayson

Lynne Cox

Alfred A. Knopf: 160 pp., $16.95

EARLY one March morning, Lynne Cox, the long-distance swimmer, was finishing her regular three-mile swim 200 yards off Seal Beach. Suddenly, a dark shape moved beneath her; the ocean erupted as grunion and tuna swam frantically around her: “The ocean was charged with energy. It felt ... expectant, like the air just before an enormous thunderstorm.”

Looking down, Cox saw an 18-foot baby whale. The whale and its mother, with hundreds of others, had been on their way to the Bering and Chukchi seas from Mexico. The mother, Cox knew, was probably using her sonar to locate the baby, but in vain, “with all the interference from [ship] sonar and other sound waves moving through the water column.” The bond Cox rapidly formed with the whale surprised her. For more than four hours, she swam alongside as it looked for its mother, afraid that if she headed to shore the whale would follow and be stranded. Cox learned new ways to swim, copying the whale as it dived.

“It was like entering a mermaid’s world where color and light were transformed into liquid ... like diving into bubbly white champagne, into clear gin.” The whale clicked and chirped; Cox tried communicating with brain waves, hoping the mother would “hear my feelings with her sonar.” Eventually, the 45-foot mother appeared, swimming within five feet of Cox and the baby, whom Cox had named Grayson. “It seemed like she was saying thank you,” Cox writes. “[Y]ou have shown me things I would never have discovered on my own,” she thinks, saying goodbye. “You have taught me how to listen and feel and understand without using words.”

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Shyness and Dignity

A Novel

Dag Solstad, translated from the Norwegian by Sverre Lyngstad

Graywolf: 112 pp., $12 paper

ELIAS RUKLA is a mild-mannered secondary-school teacher in Norway. One day, in utter disgust with his disaffected students, he leaves the classroom, goes outside, smashes his umbrella and charges a crowd of young people. Realizing that things will never be the same, he meditates on his life so far, especially his marriage to the once beautiful Eva Linde, erstwhile wife of his best friend.

Rukla is a study in creeping unhappiness, racked with doubts about his ability to communicate, empathize, even believe in democracy. He clings to literature -- to Ibsen and other Norsemen but also to Kundera, Mann and Proust, hoping it will lead to a dignified existence, but all he feels is distance; he is a “half-person.” Rukla, like so many in fiction, is lost in his own life. Every day, he puts on “a sparkling white shirt, which alleviated the distaste he could not help feeling at having to live in such a time and under such conditions.” The novel ends abruptly, on the brink of change.

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The Buddha

and the Terrorist

Satish Kumar, with a foreword by Thomas Moore

Algonquin: 144 pp., $12.95

THIS little story, from the Buddhist scriptures, is a parable for our times. In the original, Angulimala (his name means “wearer of finger necklace”) is raised a Brahmin. In an effort to exert control, he goes on a killing spree, chopping off his victims’ fingers and stringing them on a necklace. In Kumar’s version, he is low-caste, his rage fueled by the discrimination he experiences. Angulimala is confronted by the Buddha, who shows him that his rage is the result of paternal abandonment and an inability to see the oneness of all living things. Angulimala is rapidly transformed and goes off to seek forgiveness from his victims’ relatives, who are understandably reluctant to forgive.

“The religious spirit,” Thomas Moore writes in his foreword, “transforms fear into awe and violence into compassionate action.” The Buddha, the awakened one, has overcome the contagious virus of violence, a virus that “inspires an equally brutal and mindless response.” This kind of parable has a calming effect on the mind. The change in outlook from anger to compassion is also contagious, also powerful.