The Subtle Body

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The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Publication date
2010

The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America is a 2010 book on the history of yoga as exercise by the American journalist Stefanie Syman. It spans the period from the first precursors of

Pattabhi Jois
.

Several critics gave the book positive reviews, praising its wide range and readability; other critics gave it mixed reviews, noting its strengths, but also its lack of a strong continuous argument and its tendency to gossip.

Synopsis

Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of the World's Religions (1893)

Syman begins The Subtle Body by describing in turn the precursors of

the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago.[SB 3]

From there, she presents the showman

Hatha Yoga in India and Tibet.[SB 5]

The book then includes stories about a variety of straighter advocates of yoga. Syman tells the story of

Krishnamacharya, and how she had grown up in pre-revolutionary Russia, escaping to Berlin and going to India with her diplomat husband. It also tells of the times that Devi taught many celebrity pupils, including Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson;[SB 7] in a review, Sarah Schrank notes that Syman is interested in how "American fans, often rich and female", made suitable environments for yoga to spread, "shaping celebrity gurus in the process".[2]

Then Syman gives her view that, in the 1960s, the yoga scene was dominated by celebrity gurus, whether from India like

The book ends with an account of the gurus of more energetic forms of yoga, in particular

Publication

The Subtle Body was published as a hardback book by

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in New York in 2010.[4]

The book is illustrated

Arthur Avalon in 1919; a circus program from 1929 showing yoga-like contortions; the Hollywood Vedanta Temple; a naked woman in Laghuvajrasana, a back bend, at the Esalen Institute in 1972; and the Sri Ganesha Temple in Ashtanga Yoga
New York in 2009.

Reception

Several critics gave The Subtle Body positive reviews, praising its wide range and readability.[5][1][2][6] Other critics gave the book mixed reviews, noting its strengths, but also its lack of a strong continuous argument, its preference for colourful stories, and its tendency to gossip.[7][8]

One of the warmest receptions came in the New York Journal of Books from novelist Norman Powers. He calls Subtle Body "wide-ranging, flexible in its outlook, and satisfying in its inclusiveness, even if Ms. Syman never really defines what, exactly, yoga is." In his view, the result is "really a cultural history of the United States"; Powers notes Syman's statement that yoga "is one of the first and most successful products of globalization", and observes that in America it helped to weave an isolationist population "into the fabric of the larger world".[5] The scholar of Eastern religions Thomas Forsthoefel almost entirely agreed with Powers in his review of the book for Nova Religio, in which he called it "a compelling account of the complex social and philosophical interface"[1] created by yoga's arrival in America, also describing it as mainly a social history.[1]

Forsthoefel, though, sees the book's strength as Syman's storytelling, which he says provides "key snapshots both of the sweep of yoga's evolution in America and of the lives of key figures"[1] in that process, so that the book reads "almost like a novel".[1] The readability has been noted by academics, too: the historian Sarah Schrank, writing in American Studies, calls Subtle Body "highly readable" as it traces the various "transmutations" of yoga in America.[2] Bob Weisenberg, writing in Elephant Journal, states that the book "reads like a thriller"[6] and is "so entertaining it clearly has an audience outside the Yoga world".[6]

Life magazine
, 1939

Among the most critical was the historian

Hare Krishnas, and a body-oriented stream with Iyengar.[7] These are covered variously in other parts of the book.[SB 8][SB 9]

In another review, the literary critic Michiko Kakutani, writing in The New York Times, states that Syman deftly traces how Emerson and Thoreau enabled yoga to take root in America, providing a "lively gallery of larger-than-life characters" in the story of American yoga. Kakutani notes Syman's many "entertaining anecdotes" but states that the book fails to cover either yoga's ancient history or to show how the various schools of yoga evolved.[3] Almost entirely disagreeing with Kakytani, Claire Dederer, writing in Slate, calls the book an "exhaustive historical survey". She notes that Syman writes of Devi that to her, yoga refers only to the asanas, calling this "a turning point ... from esoteric pursuit to health-giving practice available to all." In Dederer's view, Syman "does a wonderful job of showing how yoga, like a virus, has kept evolving in order to survive", but all the same Dederer wonders if Syman wasn't trying too hard.[9] Similarly, Tara Katir, writing in Hinduism Today, states that Subtle Body "proceeds systematically", and is "engaging, if at times a bit gossipy."[8]

See also

  • Yoga Body, Mark Singleton's 2010 book on the origins of global yoga in physical culture
  • Selling Yoga, Andrea Jain's 2015 book on the commercialisation of global yoga

References

Primary

These references indicate the parts of the Subtle Body text being discussed.

  1. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 11–25
  2. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 26–36
  3. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 37–61
  4. ^ Syman 2010, p. 87
  5. ^ a b Syman 2010, pp. 80–142
  6. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 143–159
  7. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 179–197
  8. ^ a b Syman 2010, pp. 198–232, 256–267
  9. ^ a b Syman 2010, pp. 233–255
  10. ^ Syman 2010, pp. 268–294

Secondary

Sources