Semansky publishes widely in the field of twentieth- century culture and literature. In the following essay, he discusses the different kinds of knowing represented in "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain."

Robert Olen Butler's story, "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," focuses intently on the last phase of an old man's life. In it, we see a character, Dao, tempted away from the Buddhist beliefs that have determined his actions since he was a young man. Butler takes a piece of history—Ho Chi Minh's time working in a hotel in London—and uses it as a conceit in the story, making Dao the friend who went to Europe with him. The story unfolds as a long intermittent dream, with episodes of illusion followed by reciprocal episodes of reality. All the episodes are given equal weight so that, with Dao, the reader must...