Lured into this by his reputation, by the glowing references provided by Henry Miller, others, reading the French on the left (badly, out loud in my head) and then the English on the right (better), but I'm not smitten and my French is lousy so it's a slender book taking much longer than what it should take me to read; it's a palate cleanser of all the things I was enjoying reading. I get or understand his genius, but it's not at the moment to my taste, and the few pages remaining are proving an obstacle to my moving on and finding something else to enjoy...
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Alexandra David-Neel, in the tradition of Great White Explorers, journeys to Lhasa, Tibet, forbidden to all Western Women. This, in 1923, largely on foot, with her faithful companion and adopted son Tibetan Llama Yongden.
Now, a fine adventure, and the situations and people she encounters are so rustic it's hard to believe this took place a mere 100 years ago. There are the monks, medieval intrigues, robbers, fine accounts of the superstitions, customs, politics, there are the amusing 'vignettes' or portraits of domestic Tibetan life, bliss, or otherwise, stories told in the character of Chaucer.
There is, something I've noticed in these older lady explorer types, a certain style of narrative that they adhere to, it's as if they were telling you the stories themselves. In the first person, a very natural tone that other male authors try to distance themselves from.
Anyways that said she's as prone to telling her own romantic brand of Travelers tales as anyone, and while she professes Western Skepticism she as well buys into the Llama /Superstitious aspects of Buddhism as much as the next person- just not as much as your indoctrinated Tibetan. The occasional fantastic happening can't possibly hurt readership, can it?
And, there is something else that slightly annoyed me about it. This voyage, by necessity a deception (she impersonates a Tibetan Beggar Lady, the Holy City of Lhasa is off-limits to Western Women), yet she harps continually upon her cleverness, the near exposures, and somewhat paints the people who good-naturedly accept the deception as rubes. Perhaps they are, but - dependent as she is upon their hospitality, it would be kinder if she never mentioned it.
A fine read but not a great book, merely another view into a culture and way of life that's largely vanished.
You can read it online here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.40184, although it's not too hard to find in paperback - reprinted in 1986, maybe even again since.
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I'd read his "Arabian Sands", and, for want of anything better, picked this up to read. Interesting, a fine documentation of a way of life I suspect by now to be entirely extinct.
This, the Arabs that live in the Salt Marshes at the Mouth of the Euphrates - and his years amongst them. This - written in the early to late 50's, and he's seeing the changes that are already happening - his disparaging views of the Oil Industry, which (as he prophesized) entirely ruined their way of life. Which - to a casual reader - might not seem like such a big deal, they were pretty primitive - but we all lose with the dearth of diversity.
Of note, he mentions a legendary village in the Salt Marshes - Hufaidh - that is hidden by Djinn and addles the speech of any who come across it. He talks of the Arabs belief that there is hidden treasure, (not unsurprising, given the 5000+ years of occupation), a bit of the history of the area, of being a doctor to everyone he meets (he's a limited knowledge of medicine, and a chest filled with cures) - and he tells of him being recruited to perform circumcisions, and, as a result of his superior techniques and after-care ends up doing some days more than 100 - and - amongst the uncircumcised the "...was circumcised by an angel at birth" - to avoid the unwanted infections & mutilations, he tells of the blood feuds, and his bringing an air rifle - which is popular to shoot birds, and his observation: "You can usually get on terms with people by helping them to kill something". And there's mention of the people of the South Marshes, the Sabaeans - neither Muslim, Christian or Jew, something quite other entirely. Which, if true makes them something of an anachronism, as Wiki refers to the cult as dying out by 275 AD.
Anyways, a diversion in line with much of my current reading. Good.
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Link: Wiki on Vasily Aksyonov
In translation, by Michael Glenny, written 1969-1975, about an intertwined group of "intellectuals" in Russia. Absolutely brilliant - although perhaps a little overly long for my attention span, the 500+ pages written in stream of consciousness, meandering between characters, points of view, drunken, jazz, the mish-mash of Russian names, patronymic's, nick-names, make it nigh-on impossible to follow.
Reminding me - a bit of Thomas Pynchon in it's lucidity and breadth, of Master and Margarita in set and setting, it's an immensely personal narrative set against the background of Russia, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, against Soviet Era Communism, the same now, the same worldwide, not immediately the same, not the same cultural/socio/political influences, but - while under a different star, they are the same. Conform to a government of fools, to a system inherently corrupt and rigged, fly low and make no waves.
In thoughts I found him sympathetic, we're on the same page, of the same cloth, only perhaps he's better. Inspiring, probably not what I needed to be reading right now - but, enjoyable, very, very talented, a masterpiece.
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