Showing posts with label travel books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel books. Show all posts

Monday, September 10, 2018

A Cure for Serpents by Alberto Denti di Pirajno (Pan, 1957)

 Breath taking in its frank and joyous account of extraordinary adventures, this book is the fruit of many years spent in the former North African colonies of Italy. The Duke's medical skills and genius for friendship made in welcome in gorgeous palace and humble tent. He tells of:
  • His patients in closely guarded harems
  • The veiled Tuaregs and their 'courts of love'
  • The Negress who charmed poisonous scorpions
  • The Arab with a serpent in his stomach
  • The strange life and death of a pet lioness 
The author, whose dukedom was created in 1642 by Philip IV, King of Spain and Sicily, joined the Italian Colonial Administration after five years' service in Africa as a doctor, and in 1941 became Governor of Tripoli.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Tibetan Journey by George N. Patterson (Readers Book Club, 1956)

Someone must have taken a keen interest in Tibet, around 1956.  I found this in the Green Shed along with Seven Years in Tibet:


When the Chinese Communists broke into Tibet, George N. Patterson was engaged in missionary work there--a labor of love.  He had to leave in a hurry, and, for vitally important reasons, made a dash for India.  Yet, despite the urgency of his Tibetan Journey - which maintains a throb of excitement all through the book - the author succeeds in presenting a magnificent picture of a superb, secretive and little-known land, with its hair-raising perils, strange customs, and tough, quaint, "earthy" people.
It's strange to think that Tibet is now a tourist destination!  This book was written when travelling to Tibet was the Real Deal--something that only the most hardy and the most adventurous would undertake.  It's not a romantic account of the country (indeed, the author expresses scorn for the "Shangri-La" fantasies some people have about Tibet).  It makes no bones about describing the hardship and poverty the author encountered.  However--and this is Tibetan Journey's best feature--the author never treats any of the people he meets as anything less than individuals.  The book's blurb may describe the Tibetans as "quaint", the author most certainly does not!

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer (Pan, 1956)

A rather battered copy of the classic travel book, found in a corner of the Green Shed:


SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET has been described as 'the greatest travel book of our time'.  Yet even this comendation does not do justice to the unique experiences which it unfolds.  No European has ever before penetrated into that inaccessible land in such strange circumstances, or has succeeded in staying there so long.  Heinrich Harrer, well known Austrian mountaineer and Olympic ski-ing champion, was climbing in the Himalayas when caught by the outbreak of war, and was interned by the British in India.  With a companion, he escaped at his third attempt and crossed the Himalayas into Tibet.  After many desolate marches and strange adventures, they reached the Forbidden City of Lhasa, where they were eventually allowed to remain and earn a living.  They found the traditional insularity of Tibet leavened with a new appetite for Western knowledge and ideas.  Their fame quickly spread.  Soon they were in great demand as advisers on many subjects on which they knew little.  The day came when Harrer was presented to the young Dalai Lama, the god-king; he became the boy's friend and tutor and was permitted a degree of intimacy which awed the people and worried the religious hierarchy.  After the War's end, Harrer stayed on, but when Communist China invaded Tibet he accompanied the Dalai Lama in flight to India, and then returned sadly to Europe.  His remarkable account of his experiences is illustrated with a number of his fine photographs.  A film of this book has been made by Seven League Productions, with Harrer himself playing the chief part.
There's really not a lot I can add to this detailed description--except Seven Years in Tibet was made into a movie again in 1997, this time starring Brad Pitt.


Thursday, December 3, 2015

Nine Dragons: An Encounter With the Far East by Sally Backhouse (Hamish Hamilton, 1967)

I love vintage travel books, because they enable me to travel in time as well as space.  I found this one in a Salvos store:


Sally Backhouse went out to the Far East with few prejudices and fewer illusions, prepared for almost anything.  In this book she records her life in Hong Kong and her travels in Japan, Korea and China.  Intending tourists will find a fascinatingly personal commentary on such sights as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, Hiroshima, the temples of Kyoto; but the book is not a guide in the ordinary sense.  Everyday life in the Orient proved quite as extraordinary as its architectural and historical wonders, and the enchantment , shocks and surprises experience by the author are conveyed in a series of vividly observed and sometimes hilarious encounters.

Her curiosity about the people among whom she lived and the differences made by varying cultural attitudes is as lively as is her enjoyment.  How does the Communist school system work?  What is the Far Eastern attitude to women?  How do they feel about us--the "big noses" of the West?  These are some of the questions asked and answered in a shrewd and sympathetic look at a part of the world which is still shrouded by false glamour or sheer ignorance, but it is undeniably vital to understand.
(There will be a lot more of these coming up--I found an bagful at the Green Shed the other day!)