A review by ebonyutley
The Tao of Wu by The RZA, Chris Norris

2.0

RZA’s book is chaotic. There’s no table of contents. The random meditations, life lessons, and stories seem misplaced. His life chronology is jumbled up and difficult to follow. The pillars of wisdom aren’t parallel and they’re hard to apply. The Tao of Wu is like starting in a middle of a conversation. He is God but Allah is greater. He had the knowledge but then he pretended to forget it as his superhero alter ego. He was reborn but still dead. He’s not religious but Islam is the way. The contradictions are not self-serving as much as they’re piecemeal. They make a kind of whole that I’m not used to seeing but am trying to convince myself is still a whole. Then 2/3 of the way through and he talks about the spiritual gift of confusion and I think, maybe that’s the point. There are jewels here—tidbits of knowledge— but the book left me wondering about all the unaddressed contradictions. Again, I think that’s the point. Religion is one contradiction after another. It’s kinda what happens when you describe the indescribable.