BOOK REVIEWS
- A PORTRAIT OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL.
- STORMS OF SILENCE.
- HIMALAYA ALPINE STYLE.
- SPITI.
- YOUNGHUSBAND.
- THE GREAT GAME.
- WONDERS OF THE KARAKORUM.
- QUEST FOR KIM.
- LES 8000 RUGISSANTS.
- THE OCHRE BORDER.
- THE LOVE OF MOUNTAINS IS BEST.
- A MOUNTAIN OF HAPPINESS.
- THE BURGESS BOOK OF LIES.
- AUREL STEIN.
- VERTICLE PLEASURES.
- A HARD DAY'S SUMMER.
- SPELEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOUTH ASIA INCLUDING THE HIMALAYAN REGIONS.
- SPY ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD.
- SHORT REVIEWS.
A PORTRAIT OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL. By Audrey Salkeld. Pp. 312, illustrated, 1996. (Jonathan Cape, London, £ 18.99).
Leni Riefenstahl, born in 1902, began her career as a dancer, went on to act in that peculiarly German phenomenon, the Berfilme whose most famous exponent was Arnold Fanck, quickly learnt the technique, produced her own films, and then became embroiled in controversy. She directed and acted in The Blue Light a slightly mystical film about how man's greed destroys the purity of the mountains. The film' s almost simplistic innocence was in marked contrast to the pornography and amorality which were then so popular that Riefenstahl"s 'The Blue Light" should have sunk without a trace, but it was, as were all her films, technically beautiful, and Hitler thought it was wonderful. He asked Riefenstahl to film the Nazi Party's Nuremberg Rally of 1934, which she did. She had been impressed by Mien Kctmpf and although she says she did not want to make the film, she did. It was at this rally that Hitler appeared for the first time as head of both the party and the government. It was also at this rally that the central tenets of Hitler's 'political theology' a unified nation, military power, a deified ruler - were presented. Earlier Party rallies had been filmed but this one used the concentrated efforts of Albert Speer, Goebbels, Hitler, and Riefenstahl, as well Nazi party funds, to enshrine it in film. Riefenstahl's emphasises the swastika and an omnipresent military assails one from 99% of the film. Jollifications, at the tent city and on people's faces, suggest it is all great fun. The Leader as Deity (haloes of light surround him often) crops up all the time. The repetitions remind one of Brave New World's subliminal, sloganised education. Riefenstahl has been accused of minor faults, such as fiddling with the chronology of events, but there is absolutely no doubt that her film was, as Goebbels said when he presented her with the newly instituted German National Film Award, a filmed grand vision of our Fiihrcr. Riefentahl was then asked to film the 1936 Olympic Games which, we all know, were held to show the world how efficient the Nazi regime was. No Olympics had been filmed before, but this proved that it could be done. It is four hours long and not a feature film, but it was received with 'rapturous enthusiasm" in Scandinavia and won the Mussolini Cup at the Venice Biennale, pushing Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into second place. Olympia showed Ricfcnstahl's skill at making repetitious ritual exciting. The rally experience helped her here. The invention of modes of filming, the trouble with finances and editing, the blocking of her work by Goebbels who thought she was annoyingly close to Hitler are all told by Salkeld. So, in painstaking detail, is the fate of Riefenstahl after the War. Riefenstahl was (understandably) accused of complicity with Hitler and the Nazis. There is some evidence that she was not a Nazi stooge. For instance, in keeping with Nazi ideology, Riefenstahl was asked to remove Jesse Owens from Olympia. She didn't. This may be, as Salkeld believes, some proof of her independence from Nazi leaders, but given their control over media, Nazi censors are partly responsible for Jesse Owens' presence in the film. Still, as Riefenstahl has said in her defence, her film crews included Jews and communists. (Eichmann at his trial also used the 'some of my best friends' argument.) And she was officially cleared of complicity after the War. None of this helped to reinstate her. Her films, lost for a time and then partly recovered, were not publicly shown. Bits were used by others without permission or acknowledgement, according to Salkeld. Some were probably stolen. Portions of Olympia turned up in the Library of Congress and we would like to know how they got there. Riefenstahl's attempts to make new films ended in disaster for many reasons, often because of the Nazi taint. Officially or not, she was black-listed by the film industry. So she became a still photographer. A Hemingway book excited her about the possibility of an unspoilt tribal culture. Her photographs of the Nuba were published in the National Geographic and as a book. She became a Green Peace activist, and was scuba-diving at the age of ninety. All in all, an interesting life.
Salkeld's Portrait is not the first nor is it likely to be the last 'recovery" of Riefenstahl who has been 'recuperated" by film-makers and feminists for various agendas. But because of her work for the Nazis and her confessed closeness to Hitler, any discussion of Riefenstahl is bound to be controversial. Riefenstahl has said, 'I was never anti-Semitic and I never joined the Nazi Party. So what am I guilty of? Tell me that. I didn't drop any atom bombs. I didn't denounce anyone. So where does my guilt lie?' (Salkeld, p.273). Still, as a newspaper asked in the 1960s, 'What can one's attitude to be a women who was one of the geniuses of the cinema, and yet who was responsible for one of the most morally perverted films (The Triumph of the Will) ever made? ' (p.240)
The two usual stands on the Nazi period are 'Understand it so that it is never repeated' or 'Get them to say sorry.' Among the attempts to make them say sorry is the elimination of those suspected of collaboration with the Nazis. In France alone some 40,000 were shot. Salkeld's book raises the issue of for how long and who should pay for a war. Taking a slightly different stand to the binary one, she wants us to confront Nazism so that we can get it out of the way and on with life. Unfortunately, in trying to be fair to Riefenstahl, Salkeld often glosses over facts. For instance, on the vexed question of whether Riefenstahl received government funding for her films, Salkeld says that Olympic was 'ultimately... a highly lucrative assignment' (p. 171). But she says nothing of the curious arrangement between Riefenstahl's film company and Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and armaments minister, and Riefenstahl's friend. Thanks to Speer's interest, the 'Organization Todt Department' was setup within Riefenstahl's private film company. Organisation Todt was Speer's ministry which funded Riefenstahl's new department for working on government projects (see Hinton, p. 109)2. The arrangement continued to the final days of the war (Hinton, p. 109). All Salkeld has on this is part of a sentence in an end note and that fairly obscure (Salkeld p. 289). The rearming of Germany had resulted in some economic recovery, which, in turn, was a major reason for Hitler's popularity. Riefenstahl's father had an armaments business which could explain so many of the Riefenstahl-Nazi bonhomie, but Salkeld has not thought the information significant enough to include in her book. Sometimes Salkcld's defence borders on the absurd, such as when she asks why Riefenstahl should be treated as an outcaste when so many others have been reinstated, a question Hannah Arendt asked in Eichmann in Jerusalem but she offered more than a rhetorical flourish.3
A troubling part of this Portrait is that Salkeld is sometimes too brief about crucial events. For instance, she says that Riefenstahl did not know what Hitler was like when she agreed to film the 1934 rally, and it is true that Hitler's targets at this time were chiefly anti-fascists (leftist intellectuals, socialists, communists), but the proscription of Jews in the Civil Service, which included government service, school and university teaching and the radio, had been in force since 30 January 1933. More significantly, the fact that the Night of the Long Knives had taken place two months before the Nuremberg rally has a bearing on the Portrait. Salkeld has only two very brief references to the event, neither of which says what it was or when it happened (Salkeld, p. 126, 136). After the 'Beer-Hall Putsch' in 1923 when Hitler was jailed and he wrote Mien Kampf he realised that he must get power legitimately and keep the military on his side. Once elected, what was he do with his political army, the loyal SA? No problem. Purge them. That was the Night of the Long Knives. And so it was that at the 1934 rally, Hitler was secure from rivalry between armed groups. Even if Riefenstahl was deaf and blind to Hitler's other targets, she must have known about this. And if she doesn't mention it, Salkeld should have, not because it is a good idea to pillory Riefenstahl, but because these events are more than half a century old and many readers of Salkeld's book wouldn't know the details. Also, if, as Salkeld suggests, we must confront issues around Riefenstahl and the Nazis squarely, she should have provided us with a fuller context for Riefenstahl's rally film. One cannot even excuse Salkeld's lapse as part of her style because her book is very detailed, which makes one believe that she has left out uncomfortable details because if would be difficult to exonerate Riefenstahl in their context. There are moments when it seems that even Salkeld cannot keep this mask of false objectivity in place. Sometimes, she says, one feels 'almost' bound to ask, 'what is the matter with this women that she can overlook so obvious a truth? Can anyone be so ingenuous, or is she dissembling?" (p. 152-153). But Salkeld wants to prove Riefenstahl's ingenuousness. And so, again and again one gets the impression of history misrepresented.
Salkeld says we must separate how Riefenstahl's films were made from why they were made. Having just seen The Triumph of the Will myself, I can understand how easy it could be to gush over the technique. The film is indeed an editor's triumph. Riefenstahl never loses sight of the central point, namely, the glorification of the Nazi ideology. Every detail contributes to this, including the maleness of the culture-women either dress in quaint folk costumes or watch in smiling adoration as the men march, sing, swear allegiance, and deliver speeches. (How Riefenstahl became a major filmmaker in this culture is discussed a little in this book.) Salkeld would have us believe that Riefenstahl was interested in the art, not the reason for the film. But editing is not an innocent skill. It requires a clear idea of the purpose of the film and then comes the editing. Salkeld (and others) say that the banked clouds at the start of the rally film through which Hitler's plane flies is merely a convention of the bergfilme borrowed from Fanck. Possibly. But a once innocent context for banked clouds does not confer perpetual innocence on the image. There is much weight in the other interpretation of this image which is that Hitler is made to appear like some Norse deity.
The point is that Hitler wanted a propaganda film and Riefenstahl made it. To paraphrase a critic, one must resist the siren song of art-without-context by lashing oneselfto the mast of commonsense.4 Art is always art for a purpose. It exhorts one towards spirituality, war, or even quiescence, but all art is propaganda. Riefenstahl's films were no different except that she made overt and obnoxious propaganda.
I admire Salkeld's courage in tackling such a controversial subject. She hoped to open a debate and so I have joined issue with her about what strikes me as a near cover-up job on Riefenstahl's Nazi links. I do not know how and who should pay for a war. But I do know that Hitler's ideology, the sixty million dead in the War, and the many who died afterwards because of malnutrition and reprisals, must engage us today more directly than they have engaged Salkeld. Mein Kctmpf is a best- seller among right-wing religious groups in India. Like the Nazis, they talk of racial, religious, and national purity, and we have seen bloody attempts to execute the concept. Gocbbcls' mode of propaganda (never mind how much you lie, just plug the slogans) is admired and imitated. Lying histories are the most potent weapons of this right-wing propaganda. India is not the only country going through neo-Nazism. Nor is the phenomenon on the wane. And that is why historical irresponsibility in the name of objectivity, particularly when it involves Nazism, is to be condemned.
Why is this book on the Himalayan Journal review list? Apparently they are trying to attract 'general" readers, and of course, Salkeld was given the Boardman-Tasker Award for the best mountaineering book of 1996. Frankly, except for Salkeld's own formidable connection with mountain writing, Ricfcnstahl's mountain films, and the possible links between Hitler, Nietzsche, and those notorious Eiger assaults, I cannot see how this qualifies as a mountaineering book. I gather the jury's decision was queried on similar grounds. But more power to them and the editor for moving out of purely mountain literature.
Dr. Shobhana Bhattacharji
- Renata Berg-Pan, Leni Riefenstahl (Boston: Twayne 1980), p. 40
- David Hinton, The Films of Leni Riefenstahl (Metuchan, N. J.: Scarerow P., 1978).
- Hannah Arendh, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1963; rpt. 1979).
- Richard Lewontin, in a letter to New York Review of Books, vol. XLIV no. 4 (March 1997):51
STORMS OF SILENCE. By Joe Simpson. Pp.304, 13 colour plates, 44 b/w photos, 1996. (Jonathan Cape, London, £ 17.99).
Joe Simpson won the Boardman Tasker Award and the NCR Award for Touching the Void which received universal applause and his memoir The Game of Ghosts also won him critical acclaim. Storms of Silence his latest book is a marvellous account of the perplexing nature of aggression and violence and the manifestation of this emotion on self and on the society. Simpson writes 'Could it be that without the mechanism by which we are warned of attack we have also lost the ability to control violence? Our capacity for aggressive inhumanity both repulses and attracts me. It is ironic that we label such behaviour as bestial, brutish, that of an animal when in truth no animal would ever behave as irrational as savagely as humans."
Simpson recounts those incidents of his life where it set him to thinking and look inwards. The author gives detailed insights into the violent brushes he had with skinheads in his hometown of Sheffield. The question of body language is discussed in minute detail and the combative nature of humankind irrespective of size, colour and strength is vividly described by the author 'It has always struck me that most people shy away from violent confrontations, partly out of fear, but mostly, I suspect because its outside of their experience and training. It does not seem to have a great deal to do with size or strength or confidence. He adds by 'I know several friends who are small and do not appear threatening in any way but who are quite ferocious fighters when they are forced into a corner. I have never been able to understand the mentality required for such violence."
The author reflects a deep sense of understanding of religions when he narrates the easy relationship shared between Buddhists and Hindus in Nepal. That two such important religious centres Bodhnath, the site of the six hundred year old stupa and, the much venerated Pashupatinath, should be so close to each other. His thoughts grapple the question of life and death which haunts him constantly.
He succinctly puts his thoughts on life and death across in the burning ghats of Nepal 'There is no sense of the frailty of life and the oppressive closeness of death that infuses everything at the burning ghats" His fascination of death continues 'The spectacle of a body being cremated publicly has a sobering and mesmerizing effect. Caught between a gruesome fascination and a realisation of my own vulnerability, I am amazed at the way death is so casually accepted and open for public display in eastern countries. Far from being a grisly macabre scene, it is something that adds an immense sense of perspective to living." The author brilliantly describes his journey along Dudh Kosi river and Namche Bazar, where the mountain seemed to be watching over the Khumbu valley, according to the Sherpas. The author brutally dismisses modem day mountaineers and explorers as people who do not have a sense of history. He gives his own experience about Tibet. 'I knew little of Tibet's history and for my own convenience I chose to ignore it, or at best I made excuses for myself. I wanted to play expensive, dangerous games on big mountains. It was about adventure and excitement, vicarious thrills, toying with the idea of being an explorer. There are no explorers any more. Most of us on mountaineering trips are simple credit card adventures"
The happenings in Tibet has had a deep impact on the author. The experience of Palden Gyatso who spent his thirty - three years of imprisonment in a Chinese prison. The imprisonment, he claimed could not break his spirit.
The author feels that his Cho Oyu expedition was one of watersheds in his life. His introspection lead him to the conclusion that 'the expedition proved to be if nothing else, an opportunity to learn more about myself; about ego and ambition and weakness and self deception. Most of all, it made me think about what I took for granted; what I chose to see and chose to ignore. Accepting my own hypocrisy has not been easy, but through learning of the tragedy in Tibet, I have discovered what I have always known but have not really wanted to face"
The author's deep anguish at the violence, war and genocide at various places like Tibet, Cambodia, Aborgines of Tasmania, the Shining Path of Peru, the savage killing in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. He talks of the ease in which people can become brutalized - the speed with which we can be seduced into barbarism. He opines that these incidents should help humans to become more tolerant of others lives and religion. He sums it up aptly in these words. 'In today's climate it all comes down to pride, lust, avarice powered by modem technology which we do not know how to handle.' In this and his earlier works Joe Simpson has the eye for a revealing situation and the sharpness of intellect. He writes with a great deal of sensitivity and riveting style of self analysis and introspection.
We hope that Joe Simpson has 'that uncomfortable feeling that there were more bad dreams to come"
Raju Vasantraj
HIMALAYA ALPINE STYLE. The Most Challenging Routes on the Highest Peaks. By Andy Fanshawe and Stephen Venables. Pp. 192, 210 colour plates, maps, sketches, 1995. (Hodder and Stoughton, London, £ 35).
Mountaineering first began in the Alps. Because of the proximity of the peaks and its comparatively lower height, it was possible for the climbers there to scale the mountains on their own or with few companions and in the shortest possible time. This technique, popularly known as alpine style has its origin in the Alps and involves a small team leaving its base in its pursuit of summit, pushing continuously up without the benefit of fixed ropes, support team, intermediate camps and supplementary oxygen. As the western climbers came to the Himalaya, they tried to apply the same technique here. Thus, in 1895, Alfred Mummary and Raghobir Thapa reached nearly 7000 m on the Diamir face of Nanga Parbat, a remarkable feat of their time. But soon, the climbers found that this technique did not necessarily result in the ascent of the mountain. The success rate was minimal. Their difficulties were compounded by two unique problems which necessitated a change in this approach. First, the mighty size of the Himalaya and the second, the problem of altitude. In order to overcome these obstacles, huge sieges were led for the mountains. The sheer force of logistics, the fixed ropes, series of camps en route and use of supplementary oxygen became the order of the day. Victory at any cost became the objective. Everything else was thrown to the winds. This was the beginning of the siege tactics in the Himalayan climbing.
By 1964, all the 8000ers had been climbed. Most of the important routes had also been climbed. It was as if mountaineering had come to a dead end. Climbers began to think. It was during this period that small teams without being bogged down by the logistics began to take on the high peaks. New and tougher routes were being identified and scaled. Thus, the alpine style returned to the Himalaya with much vigour. Mountaineering had completed a full circle.
It was Reinhold Messner who showed the way with his success on the Nanga Parbat, the most feared mountain. Thereafter, he went on to scale Everest in alpine style, without supplementary oxygen and solo. He was closely followed by Voytek Kurtyka, Alex Mclntyre and Jerzy Kukuczka who took the alpine style to the extreme.
Stephen Venables has in the present book dealt with forty routes which he feels are not only challenging but also enjoyable. Starting with Rakaposhi in the western Karakoram in Pakistan till Kangchenjunga in the east, Stephen Venables has identified these routes across the length and breadth of the Himalaya. He has divided the entire Himalayan range in three parts. The range in Pakistan, followed by the one in India and the one in Nepal and Tibet.
Among the peaks in Pakistan, K2 and the great Trango Towers are the obvious choices. K2 (8611 m) in 1986, the year of tragedies, seen the fastest climb in its history when Benoit Chamoux reached the summit by the Abruzzi ridge in just 23 hours, after a few days of his solo ascent of Broad Peak in just 16 hours. Though he was helped by the others on the route especially with their trail and ropes, but it shows that given two days of fair weather, a mountain of K2"s stature could also be climbed in alpine style with minimal chances of disaster. The great Trango Tower (6251 m) considered to be the largest needle on earth is a rock climbers" dream by any route. Venables" choice is the Eternal Flame or the south pillar route. This route which provides over 1000 m of mixed and granite rock climbing of grade VIII at an altitude of over 5000 m is a challenging proposition. He also selects Broad Peak (8047 m) on the Godwin Austin glacier by its west spur and north ridge has been made memorable by that heroic gesture of Kurt Diemberger when returning from the summit, he found Hermann Buhl still struggling his way up. In a moment unique in the history of high altitude mountaineering, he turned back with his mentor reaching the summit for the second time just when the dusk was setting in. Hidden Peak (8068 m) by its northwest face climbed by Reinhold Messner and Peter Hebler, a two man team had succeeded for the first time in climbing an 8000 m peak in alpine style.
In the Indian Himalaya, Shivling (6543 m) in the Garhwal Himalaya by its east ridge represents a good choice. That majestic Thalay Sagar (6904 m) by its northeast buttress also poses a formidable challenge. Changabang (6864 m) a steep granite and ice climbing of the grade of VI by the magnificent south buttress route is a fine objective.
In the Nepal Himalaya, besides Everest (8848 m) by the North Face direct, Venables has selected Ama Dablam (6856 m) by the southwest ridge for the alpine style ascent. Kangchenjunga (8595 m) by the northwest face completed by the Japanese expedition in 1980 and north ridge route of the British team of Peter Boardman, Doug Scott and Joe Tasker scaled in 1979 is a good selection.
Venables is convinced that the alpine style in Himalaya is more enjoyable. At times risks outweigh the gains and the compromise may well be desirable. Thus he suggests a combination of the siege tactics with alpine style. In fact, in 1988 both Andy Fanshawe and Stephen Venables made use of fixed rope to their advantage while climbing Menlungste. The best of both the styles would in his opinion maximise the gains.
The book, completed by Stephen Venables after the tragic death of Andy Fanshawe, is remarkable in that it has made an objective assessment of the routes proposed. It has made lavish use of beautiful colour photographs amidst the history of each mountain. The possible routes to be tried in alpine style are lucidly described. The sketches of the route and the area are very imaginatively placed. The summary at the end contains a wealth of information. By any reckoning, it is a treat to possess this book.
Vinit Rau
SPITI. Adventures in the Trans-Himalaya. By Harish Kapadia. Pp. 216, 47 colour plates, 65 b/w photos, 10 maps, 1996. (Indus Publishing Co., New Delhi, Rs. 1250).
The Himachal province of Spiti is a rarified and elevating terrain and in my opinion even more dream-like than the multi- hued void of Ladakh. Perhaps because of its aloof status Spiti has never had justice done to its mesmerising rockscape and to most travellers it represents but an exotic postscript to Lahaul. Now that inner line restrictions have been eased it is important that visitors should have access to an intelligent and up-to-date guide. Harish Kapadia's collection of travels through and around Spiti fits the bill exactly. This is an outstanding introduction to a challenging and beautiful area, comprehensive by virtue of the author's familiarity with the routes and authentic by his ranging concern to include all useful sources of information. The production is outstanding, the lay out could hardly be better and the photographs have reproduced well. Only the initial antique maps let down the superb quality of this invaluable source-book for Spiti. From jacket illustration to index this is a book to rave over - certainly for a Scot reviewer who is saved the painful outlay for this must-have acquisition. It is rewarding for any author to find that his books evolve from self-conscious technical treatises (valued rather than read) to winged harbingers of recounted delights. Compared to Kapadia's earlier works on the Sahyadri and Hidden Himalaya this mustering of Spiti memories is more laid back and lyrical and the literary touches come through as real. When I first saw the upper valley of the Spiti (any way my brand new Olympia jammed from the cold) I was reconciled to the frustrations of Coleridge. I really did believe this was a dream and the jamming of the camera a perfectly legitimate psychic occurrence. Wliatis especially noticeable to readers accustomed to expect gaps in the narrative where did journeys are strung together is that Harish has gone to great pains to maintain an uninterrupted flow. There are 16 chapters covering a fairly exhaustive breakdown of the trekking possibilities mixed with illuminating insights and humourous anecdotes from his own travels. The only well-known fact about the area that he appears to have omitted is that another village has usurped the place of Khibber as the highest settlement in Asia. This successor village incidentally was the scene of an international academic row when a Chandigarh professor faked some fossil finds to boost his fame. The other infamy (duly recorded) is the murder of German escapee P.O.W. apparently for his gold at Tabo. Those who consider this a freak incident in the Trans-Himalaya overlook the narrative of Heinrich Harrer who several times felt he was being tailed by murderous Khampas during his epic to Lhasa with Peter Aufschaniter. (Schemaderer made the fatal mistake of allowing his companion Paidar to continue to Puh.) There was safety in numbers. And to prove it the geniality of Kapadia as expedition leader is brought out by the fact that his companions never contemplated throwing him to the wolves. Wildlife addicts may feel shortchanged that amidst all the miscellaneous appendices so little space has been given to the fauna. (Possibly Harish suffered my nightmare of being chased by man-eating sheep dogs which would justify exclusion of beasts of the field!)
Jimmy Roberts (or maybe 'Chabi Roberts' in view of the several keys to different ranges his enterprise has unlocked) has given another angle on the best known myth about Spiti - the height of Shilla - in his robust foreword. He's probably right too about the hazards awaiting ancient limbs that risk their retirement pension by climbing on to the roof of the daily bus from Kullu to Kaja. But what a magnificent section of the Great Range you cut through. That circle from Kullu past Kaja down the loops of the Satluj; from the alpine greenery of the southern face, climbing past the Rohtang jot to fall into mighty troughs that cleave the crest-line twice and then delivers the astonished visitor back into alpine orchards at Puh must surely be the best introduction to the treasure house of the snows anywhere in the Himalaya. Harish chose the harder part by trekking across the Pin Parvati, the sort of challenge that makes mountain travel memorable without the serious grief that can attend the ambition to attain altitude. Frankly I find his photo of the dak bungalow at Pulga much more aesthetic than the shot of the summiter on Manirang. (In fact some would require corroboration from the President of the Himalayan Club that Divyesh is not unfurling his flag on the roof of the Kullu-Kaja bus!) Jimmy Roberts talks about the affection that these Bombay mountaineers have for Spiti and that I imagine is the ingredient that has made this guide book gel into a very readable and profitable guide. No better tribute to the memory of the big hearted Paul Nunn (to whom the book is dedicated) could be forthcoming than this well-crafted and soundly researched anthology that delves so sportingly into the Spiti mystique.
Bill Aitken
Harish Kapadia has done the once remote region of Spiti an immense service by describing its story up to the present. Spiti was well known to 19th century travellers in the Himalaya. Gerard, Moorcraft, Trebeck and Cunningham were amongst the best known explorers who wrote excellent account of Spiti, Markham and Tyacke described the shooting to be had there; and those pioneers of mountain and other photography, P. H. Egerton and Samuel Bourne, left splendid photographs of Spiti in the 1860s.
Spiti was also famous in mountaineering circles because in 1860 a khalasi, or survey helper, climbed Shilla to place a surveying pole on its peak. Shilla's height was mistakenly recorded as 23,064 ft, so this climb constituted an altitude record for 47 years, until Dr. Longstaff climbed Trisul. Alas, the true height of Shilla, as was ascertained in the 1950s, is nearer 20,000 ft, so the romantic unnamed khalasi held no record.
Much less was written in the first half of this century. In 1939 J.O.M. Roberts was the first serious mountaineer to visit Spiti (H. J. Vol. XII, p. 129), and expedition by others followed in the 1950s. Then the region was effectively closed for nearly three decades, following the 1962 Indo-Chinese war. Today all restrictions have been lifted, and anyone can visit Spiti. What was in the 1950s and before an arduous ten day trek from Manali is now only some hours in a bus. The result is that Spiti is fast becoming a major trekking and tourist area because of its easy access.
Kapadia's book is a fine blend of history and description of present day Spiti. He has travelled and climbed extensively throughout the area, so he brings a fresh first-hand knowledge to his writing. There are many photographs which capture the aura of Spiti well. (It is particularly interesting to compare his photographs of Ki monastery with those taken by Egerton in the 1860s. The monastery has clearly seen considerable changes in fortune.)
All in all this is an excellent book which can be recommended as a thoroughly good read. Now that Spiti has opened up to all comers, this book is also timely.
Sir Peter Holmes
YOUNGHUSBAND. The Last Great Imperial Adventurer. By Patrick French. Pp. 440, 40 b/w photos, paperback, 1995. (Flamingo, Harper Collins, London, £ 7.99)
This review on a long forgotten Asian Himalayan adventurer in the British imperial days, is on the first researched biography of Francis Younghusband. The author, Patrick French poses the basic question : What sort of man was he? For my generation, memories of him lingered as a daring explorer, who crossed the Gobi desert in a pioneering journey from Peking to Peshawar at the age of 24; a politico-military who opened the gates of hidden Tibet in 1903; later, a mystic who promoted the early Everest expeditions, and wrote Epic of Everest. French's biography opens up a more detailed, complex story of the mutation of a unique man of many parts, even apparently contradictory parts, evolving his life through remarkable changes of experiences in his wanderings in Asia, India, Tibet, U.K., Europe, and America. 'How had a blimpish colonialist,' French asks, 'managed to end up as a premature hippy,' pursuing imperialist designs, mysticism, free love, and then become a founder of what is now called the World Inter-Faith movement? Right through the book, French weaves three strands in F.Y.' s life; his family and personal relations, his maverick role as a Great Game frontiers man and explorer, and as a romantic mystic. The last was not a late discovery. It had been germinating in him from childhood, to his discovery of Tolstoy in Chitral, to his vision in Tibet, and his last years in the west.
French found in him a coherent character, no Jekyll and Hyde: 'the seeds of the mystic were there in the early years, and the traces of the imperialist remained to his death". Younghusband's life may have been one of the famous, unexamined lives of the last century, now revealed by French in a fascinating prism of colours and experiences. 'In the end I came closest to him not in Asia, but in a dusty attic in Dorset." Younghusband colonised five years of the life of French in a pursuit which took him from his Himalayan travels, to Indore and Kashmir where Younghusband was Political Agent, to his home, relations and a mixed bag of associates in the U.K., where he burst into romantic mysticism in the last decades of his life with the energy of his youth in the Central Asia.
Bom in Murree in 1863, and brought up in Bath in a strong Evangolical family in mid-Victorian times by two aunts 'of the sternest stuff," strictly religious, with no moral laxity, and strict teetotallers; F. Y. had religion and a sense of sin beaten into him as a boy. Next, he was shaped by Clifton college as 'a Christian gentlemen" to play the game with athletic morality and esprit de corps. Later, he was to play the Great Game between Britain, the Indian Empire and Russia in Asia with this upbring. Nevertheless, F.Y. was to have close relations with four women in his long life, despite a married wife to whom he wrote every day, wherever he was, even from Lhasa.
After Sandhurst, F. Y. came out to India in 1882, inspired by his uncle, Robert Shaw, as intrepid tea grower in Kangra who ventured to Kashgar to find a market. Perhaps there lay the seed for his desire to travel in the Himalaya and Asia. F. Y."s mother and father had lived in Dharamsala. When French, following in the Younghusband family's trail, was looking for the house of his parents, John and Clara in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala; he found the house belonged to Jetsen Pema the Dalai Lama's elder sister. He wrote: 'History had come full circle; Younghusband went to Tibet, and now the Tibetans have come to Younghusband's house.'
F.Y. got his first premonition of his Himalayan travel and exploration on a trip to the Rohtang pass. He dreamed of unseen lands in Central Asia and the source of the Indus. He would go to Tibet he said and become a famous traveller. He learnt surveying and pressed for forward missions in this second phase of the Great Game; incidentally, a term coined by a Lt. Arthur Connolly of the 6th Bengal Native Cavalry in trying to reach Khiva as a Persian merchant in 1830. The Russians called the Great Game, the 'Tournament of the Shadows", which turned out to be more true as far as F.Y.'s experience in Tibet and Lhasa was to prove in 1903.
Then followed Manchuria, and the famous journey from Peking to Peshwar across the Gobi desert, and over the ice-bound Mustagh pass. Amazingly, a letter of credit from the Hongkong Bank, and a small loan from Lady Walsham, wife of the British envoy in Peking was his only source of finance. The silence of the desert and the "unperturbed serenity" of the night sky gave him 'a sense of the wholeness of the universe and of being intimately connected with the whole;" his spiritual gene which blossomed into spiritual quests decades later. Amazingly, without ropes, ice axes and crampons, Younghusband and his men descended the ice precipices of the Mustagh. Unknown to him then, he set eyes on K2. Back in Srinagar and Peshwar, he, at 25, was an acknowledged world class explorer.
Through years as a frontiers man playing the Great Game against the Russians, Younghusband found the political fulcrum of his life in the greatest of British India imperialists, Curzon, who was the highest level British politician in the Great Game idea, before, during, and after his viceroyalty. Both shared a high sense of imperial mission : the empire was almost divinely ordained; the brown subjects were like children needing a firm, ruling father figure. Curzon chose him for his thrust into Tibet, perhaps the high water mark of F. Y. "s career. Against a hesitating, reluctant Whitehall, both these men transformed a cross border show of strength into a regular invasion. When Younghusband took Lhasa, he found no Russians. A ghost came out of the romantic 100-year old imperial adventure. It proved to be the Russian tournament of the shadows. The description of the whole venture by French is part outlandish opera, part imperial pageant in Lhasa, and, the best part, an amazing Kiplingesque dichotomy of the British and Tibetans thinking, negotiating, and warring in two entirely different cultures. Neither, not even the great expert in Asiatic affairs, Younghusband - understanding each other at all. Hence, the tragic slaughter of relatively unarmed Tibetan soldiers and monks, believing in supernatural guardians. If ever east was east and west was west, it was in Tibet in 1903, and the twain met in unnecessary deaths. In 1915, in passionate defence of the British cause against the Germans, F. Y. wrote in the Daily Telegraph : 'The failure of the world is at stake. We are fighting that the ordinary human rights are preserved. We are engaged in a spiritual conflict - a holy war - the Fight for Right." He failed to understand that was exactly how the Tibetans felt and believed in 1903.
Ironically, on the return from Lhasa, the spirit of Tibet overcame its military conqueror. In the mountains south of Lhasa, 'under an unclouded sky of the clearest Tibetan blue, the distant peaks bathed in a purple haze", Younghusband found himself overwhelmed with elation, exhilaration, joy 'in a revelation of the essential goodness of the world - in short, men at heart are divine". That transformed him for the rest of his life into a fervent, prolific writer and promoter of the religious, the mystical, and the inter-faith relationships of the great faiths. He was looking for a 'new spirituality for the virile races of the North," a mix of his past militarism and his slowly developing mysticism.
As this review is for the Himalayan Journal F. Y's association with the early mountaineers might be briefly told. He gave Martin Conway, that explorer of the Karakoram, information about flower presses, altitude barometers, and the temperament of the Baltis. And here's a precious piece from a future President of the Mount Everest Committee, the promoter of the first Everest expeditions. 'My dear Conway, mere climbing of peaks just for the sake of saying one has been up them I don't much care about." He was more interested in the behaviour of glaciers. In a 1893 expedition to Chitral he met 'a bullish young lieutenant of the 5th Gurkhas', the Hon. Charlie 'Bruiser' Bruce; and on the Chitral Polo ground, Bruce proposed they might explore 'the foothills of Mount Everest' with a view to making an ascent. Nearly three decades later they would come together on that one. When he was resident in Kashmir in 1907, he enjoyed entertaining the Duke of the Abruzzi heading north to explore the Karakoram. A little known fact in the wider mountain world was that Frank Smythe was a protege of his, both absorbed in mountain mystique. Smythe left an unfinished biography of Younghusband.
Patrick French has done a first class job in his first biography. Despite the researched facts of a true life, this story reads as fascinatingly as an exotic novel. It is both fun and education. The book happens to be a winner of the Somerset Maugham award.
A. D. Moddie
THE GREAT GAME. The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. By Peter Hopkirk. Pp.565,39 b/w illustrations, 6 maps, 1990. (John Murray publishers, London, £ 25.00).
Over two centuries, the East India Company known as the 'Grandest Society of Merchants in the Universe", spanned as much geography as it does history. To follow its multifarious activities involves an imposing span extending from Southern Africa to North West America - a huge commercial enterprise which controlled half of the then world trade and also administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire. The canvas of this book spans from the Caucasus in the west - the entire Central Asia to China's frontiers in the east. Bolshaya Igra in Russian means the Great Game. The author narrates vividly, 'how a succession of ambitious Tsars and ruthless generals crushed the Muslim people in Central Asia and occupied their lands. Fearing that the Russians would not stop until India too was theirs, the British (Company) sent young intrepid officers northward through the passes to spy on them. At times the Great Game spilled over into Afghanistan, Persia (Iran), China and Tibet.' Russia, one of the main protagonist of the Great Game was still haunted by the Mongol conquest, out of the heart of Asia they rode, as invincible as a force of nature. In huge columns of men and beasts, they poured across the Eurasian steppe. Slow and menacing, swift as lightning during an attack. War was their profession, as well as their destiny. After the Mongol conquest, Russia was determined that no Asian neighbour should ever pose a threat of encirclement. Hopkirk puts things in perspective by emphasising the point that 'the glittering riches of India have always attracted covetous eyes and long before the British first arrived there her rulers had learned to live with the perpetual threat of invasion."
When the Great Game began in the early 19th century, it was a clandestine quest for information and power over unknown parts of Central Asia. As one of the world's leading strategist on war Carl Von Clausewitz states 'By intelligence we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country- the basis, in short, of our plans and operations". There was the huge expanse of uncharted mountainous territory caught between the empires of British India and Tsarist Russia which both sides want to control. 'In no other part of the world" wrote a British spy in the 1880s, 'are there found such lofty mountains within so confined a space." Geologically young and still active, the Karakorams and neighbouring Hindu Kush thrust aloft where the Indian Sub-continent presses into Asia. Here stand some of the worlds highest mountains; with 25 peaks over 25,000 feet. At first the players had travelled in disguise and great secrecy. Captain Charles Christie travelled Baluchistan dressed up as a Tartar horse dealer. While Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Light Cavalry passed himself off as a Persian merchant when trying to reach Khiva in 1830.
As European features became increasingly recognisable to the inhabitants of the frontier, the British began to train educated Indians in the skills of espionage and surveying, The Pundits, as they become known, were taught how to use theodolites and altitude thermometers and sent off for years at a time to unmapped areas disguised as pilgrims or traders. These Pundits used to carry prayer wheels containing trignometrical charts and false bottomed trunks packed with sextants and compasses. The Pundits were responsible for the first maps of western Tibet and southern Turkestan. As the Russians audacious push southwards through the Caucasus fears of safety of India deepened, the Russians switched their gaze eastward towards the ancient Khanates of Khiva, Bokhara and Khokand. As the Russian advance towards them gathered momentum, London and Calcutta became increasingly alarmed with the Russian forays into the ancient Silk Road and fall of the ancient Khanates of Khiva, Bokhara, Khokand, Tashkent and Samarkand. As the gap between the two frontlines gradually narrowed the Great Game intensified. Despite the dangers, permanently from tribes the Great Game was alluring and dangerous and to this extent at least Rudyard Kipling version was accurate 'We of the game are beyond protection, If we die, we die. Our names are blotted from the book. That is all" As the Great Game entered the second phase there was no longer the same emphasis on disguise and secrecy and the rivalry with Tsarst Russia was becoming more blatant. Central Asia was becoming a vast adventure play ground of ambitious young officers and explorers of both sides.' The Tournament of Shadows", as the Russians described the Game had begun. The central figure in this phase was Lord Curzon one of India's most eloquent Viceroys, a position he held from 1899 - 1905 India was Curzon's lifelong love which started as a young Member of Parliament visiting the country as a correspondent for the Times and continued visiting the country by exploring the remotest northern frontier for the Royal Geographical Society, increased the tempo of the Great Game activities.
Hopkirk recounts the importance of the Pamir gap, located at the crossroads where China, Russia, Afghanistan and India converge. This has been the pathway for invaders since 1500 B.C. In these remote mountains would be an astonishing mix of people from the descendants of Alexander the Great to Afghans. The arid, inhospitable tableland of Tibet in Lord Curzon's favourite phrase a buffer state became the new flash point of the Great Game. After the jolt provided by Curzons unwarranted invasion of Tibet the rival powers in Central Asia agreed the Tibet was out of bounds. This cleared the way for China to strengthen the hold on Tibet and intensify Tibet's seclusion from the outside world. Even till date Tibet remains the least known, least explored place on earth, rich in mystery and adventure.
Peter Hopkirk has written a brilliant book on an ancient amphitheatre of activity which provides a valuable insight into realpolitik of Great Powers, the book takes us through the life and times of intrepid adventurers from British India and Tsarist Russia; Hopkirk's grasp and detailed knowledge of every layer of history of the area is commendable though one felt he could have reproduced detailed maps of the area under discussion. His vivid anecdotes of the eccentric Khanates of Central Asia make this book a classic in the history of Central Asian affairs.
Raju Vasantraj
WONDERS OF THE KARAKORUM. By Pervez A. Khan. Pp.160, 87 colour plates, 2 maps, 1996. (Ferozsons, Rawalpindi, nps).
While climbing in the Siachen glacier, in the eastern Karakoram, I have looked at the panorama on the west and had always wondered how the area would appear from the ground. These areas are the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Due to the troubled nature of relationships between India and Pakistan, I, as an Indian cannot visit them. The Indian passport states 'not valid for the Northern Areas of Pakistan" for this very area is disputed. There are several books, expedition accounts and articles available that give you a taste of what it is like in the western Karakoram. But then that is not like the real thing.
As one goes through this book with several photographs of mountains, people, their sports, eating habits, wildlife and natural habitats, one aspect is clear. Political boundaries may separate them but the character and physical aspects of mountains and people on both the sides are the same. Despite the divisions or armies separating them, both the sides of the Karakorams and the people living in them are alike. That is the real thing !
This book covers those Northern Areas of Pakistan which are called the western Karakorams (though the author prefers to call them Karakorum). The range is divided into two districts, Gilgit and Baltistan. The introductory chapter covers various aspects of the range briefly, as one would expect from a coffee- table book. Geology, climate, wildlife and exploration history are covered. The list of '8000 m peaks in world" looks out of place and the 'table of peaks in the Karakorams" is rather incomplete. You will come across better pictures in the Japanese book on the same subject (this book is formulated on similar lines) but there are certain specialities of this publication.
The best thing about this book is that it is written by a Pakistani. In fact no one can know the area better than a native. We have had too many introductions and tomes about the Karakorams from the western explorers and climbers. Covering the various aspects of Gilgit and Hunza, the author mentions of a legend of Siri Badat, or explains that famous peak Bojohagur Dunashir's meaning as 'where only the horse of the demon can go". Such insights, regularly offered in this book sets it apart from the usual glossy books on similar subjects, and it could be narrated only by a person who understands the language and the religion.
In the margins many well known Pakistani and Asian explorers, climbers and surveyors are introduced. Here is information which otherwise would be hard to come by. The author introduces Khan Sahib Afraz Gul Khan, who surveyed the major parts of the Karakorams. Khan 'who was a Pathan and known to be totally fearless, had almost a supernatural sense of topography, and in the realm of plane-table survey of high mountains he had no peers. 'Prince Sultan Feroze Sufi from the ruling family in Nagar was a man of letters and the poet laureate of the Northern Areas. 'This aristocratic gentleman, clad in a corduroy jacket; a necktie or a cravat in place; always with his plumed felt hat; will no longer be seen pruning his terraced "chaman"" (garden) nor ambling in the lanes of Gilgit and neither at polo "throwing in the ball"". He passed away last August("94) when well into his eighties."
We have Nazir Abbas Mirza who initiated the idea of organised expeditions and trekking in Pakistan. Under him several ace Pakistani climbers were trained, like Ashruf Am an, Raj an Shah and Nazir Sabir, who climbed K2 in 1981. Mahdi of Hunza was part of the Ardito Desio's expedition of 1954 which made the first ascent of K2. Dr. Desio in his book Ascent of K2 writes; 'Mahdi was very strong physically and had a vast experience of mountains.... and as single-minded in his desire to reach the summit as the Italians." The author introduces many other mountaineers warmly. Nazir Sabir of Hunza,' a man of immense physical endurance and will power", Raja Muhammed Bashir of Charehan, Muree hills, who, 'after bracing a bitter cold night in the open at 24,700 feet along with the Japanese climbers stepped upon the virgin peak of the 25,400 feet Saltoro Kangri."
There are several others who are similarly mentioned, making us aware that there are several brilliant climbers in the subcontinent.
The author, Pervez Ahmad Khan is also a man of two worlds. He was born in Shimla and graduated from Lucknow, both in India. He had his schooling in Rawalpindi and now lives in Muree, which is a hill station in Pakistan similar to the one where he was born. He has undertaken several expeditions in the range, including some sponsored by the National Geographic Society.
The latter half of the book is about the area of Baltistan, albeit partly covered. Several high mountains are discussed with a brief history and the explanations of their names. Choglolisa ('the great hunting ground), K2 or Chogori ('the big mountain"), Masherbrum,('the dooms day mountain") and Gasherbrum ('the splendid mountain") and many others are mentioned. All these peaks are in the valley of the Indus river ('the Lion river") and the Shyok. But as we come to the eastern part, alas, the author has to stop. For the valley where the Shyok originates is now controlled by India. The Karakoram Pass, the pass which gives the entire range its name, is the eastern most point of the range and is situated on the divide between the Asian sub-continent and Central Asia. Just as I, an Indian cannot visit the Northern Areas of Pakistan, unfortunately, Pervez as a Pakistani cannot visit the eastern areas of the Karakoram, which are with India. When will all this divisions be eradicated, allowing everyone to enjoy the range in full ?
Nazir Sabir is the Honorary Local Secretary of the Himalayan Club. This international club has its headquarters in Bombay. I correspond regularly with Nazir to obtain results of various climbing expeditions to the Northern Areas of the Karakoram. The only time a policeman visited the Himalayan Club's office, however casually, was to inquire why a Pakistani writes to me regularly from Hunza ? I mentioned this to Nazir and he had similar difficulties. Government there was suspicious as to why he was writing to me in Bombay about the 'sensitive' areas of the Karakoram ! We communicate even today. As this book portrays, mountains, people, culture, wildlife and all other aspects are of a similar nature on both sides of the border, and artificial barriers cannot dissolve the love of the mountaineers for the Karakorams.
Harish Kapadia
QUEST FOR KIM. In Search of Kipling's Great Game. By Peter Hopkirk. Pp. 274, 1 map, 1996. (John Murray, London £ 15.99).
Hopkirk's childhood infatuation with Kipling's Kim and the 'Great Game that never ceases day or night" leads him into an odyssey of discovery.
In Quest For Kim Hopkirk explores the real-life antecedents of the characters and locales in Kim. Kipling, then a reporter for a Lahore newspaper, used many factual accounts from interesting events and people around him and wove them into his characters and narrative.
Hopkirk's trail, beleaguered by the usual travails of travelling in the sub-continent, seems to be peppered with its fair share of mishaps and dead ends. But his asides (dealing in depth with history, politics and culture) and the skillful denouement of Kim alongside keeps one's interest from flagging throughout.
Though Kipling's colonialism may have been excusable considering the times be lived in, Hopkirk's occasionally imperialistic tone, like when he talks of 'The Mutiny' or the 'Indian War of Independence' as some Indians prefer to call it, is a bit difficult to swallow. But I suppose it does depend on which side you're looking at it from.
Hopkirk's book reverberates with fondness for Kipling's Kim and whether you're a Kim novice or a veteran, you're bound to be tempted to pick up the original and 'rediscover Kipling's Indian masterpiece', which is Hopkirk's avowed aim.
Rashmi Palkhivala
LES 8000 RUGISSANTS. By Erhard Loretan and Jean Amman. 1996. (Editions La Sarine. Fribourg, Suisse, Sw. Fr. 49.50).
Erhard Loretan climbed his first mountain in 1970 when he was eleven. At the age of thirteen, he ascended his first north face, graded TD, on the Doldenhorn 3368 m. While still at school he had decided to become an Alpine guide, and the most precious of his study-books was Glace, Neige et Roc by Gaston Rebuffat. At 17, Loretan opened his first new route in the Gastlosen group, situated near his home in the Gruyere. Between the ages of 19- 22, he had fixed the lines of his future career. Completing an apprenticeship in carpentry, which he still practises, he also qualified as a mountain guide: 'I was happy to be able to turn my passion into my profession." In this book, written shortly after he had become the third climber to ascend the world's fourteen highest mountains, Loretan provides a personal account of some of his important climbs. It is intensely readable: not only because of his exploits, but because of the insights into his mountain philosophy, delivered with a light touch and a vivid sense of humour. My sole criticism relates to the use of a coauthor, which dilutes the simplicity of Loretan's personal style.
On his first venture outside Europe in 1980 with two friends to the Peruvian Andes, Loretan adopted the light alpine tactics that were to become characteristic of his style. He was twenty- three when he climbed Nanga Parbat. With a small and wiry physique, possessing exceptional physical and mental stamina and extraordinary speed, he discovered that his performance was almost unaffected by oxygen deficiency at high altitudes. For this expedition and the next, a year later in 1983 to the Baltoro glacier, Loretan was hard-pressed to raise his share of the costs - once adopting the temporary role of a home-delivery wine salesman. In a period of 17 days on the Baltoro glacier, Gasherbrum I and II and Broad Peak were climbed. Manaslu followed in April 1984. Loretan regards as one of his most daring exploits, the traverse of the 7.5 km-long east ridge of Annapuma, which he achieved with Norbert Joos between 21-24 October 1985, reaching the East, Central and Main summits, and descending the serac- ridden north face of Annapuma I. On 6-7 July of the same year he had climbed K2 in an almost continuous two-day push under very severe conditions. He finished that year with the first winter ascent, between 6-8 December, of the 3000 m east face of Dhaulagiri I. Two months later, joining forces with Andre Georges, 38 peaks (30 above 4000 m), comprising the 'Imperial Crown" of the Valais, were climbed in 19 days in February 1986 during a spell of harsh winter weather with only 7 fine days.
The first alpine style ascent of Everest's North Face was made by Loretan with Jean Troillet in August 1986 in the astonishing time of 39 hours - the last punishing 400 m requiring 10 hours. On a calm, windless afternoon they spent 90 minutes on the summit, 'a unique experience". During the descent, achieved in 3 hours, they were almost hit by an avalanche which swept their ascent route and were on constant guard against spinning out of control on frequent icy patches during their sitting glissades. Prior to this ascent, Loretan had been laid low for almost 3 weeks at base camp by two accidents, the first to his foot by a fall from a hang-glider, and the next by an injury to his arm. Other tragedies were in store. A few months later, in February 1987, at the start of an attempt to climb 13 Alpine north faces in winter with Andre Georges, Loretan was swept 400 m down an icy face by an avalanche, fracturing 2 spinal discs; surgeons told him that he might never be able to climb again. In July, falling again from a hang-glider, he fractured 2 more spinal discs. In 13 days, between 13-26 January 1989, the 13 north faces were eventually climbed: 7 were graded ED, 3 TD and 3 D. Loretan describes this series of climbs as the most demanding that he has ever done. In June 1988 Loretan teamed up with Voytek Kurtyka on the Baltoro glacier to climb a superb line on the 1200 m east face of the 'Nameless" Tower, 6257 m. The partnership was repeated in September 1990 when the two with Troillet made the first ascent of the SW face of Cho Oyu. After a failure on Makalu's unclimbed west face with Troillet in September 1991, the west pillar route was climbed by them in 33 hours from their base camp to the top. The return took 9 hours.
Jean Troillet had accompanied Erhard Loretan on six of his 8000 m climbs. Practising the same style, they understood perfectly each other's strengths and weaknesses, and only exceptionally did they use a rope. Their last two climbs together were on Lhotse in October 1994, and on Kangchenjunga one year later. In between, Loretan had made a solo ascent of the main summit of Shishapangma in a 26-hour round trip from base camp (he had reached the Central summit 5 years earlier). The summit of Lhotse was reached in a storm on the descent, Loretan and Troillet were able to assist a Canadian and Scottish pair who had to abandon their attempt owing to the extreme conditions. Because of the violence of the wind on the summit of Kangchenjunga, resulting in an estimated air temperature of -63°C, they spent only a few minutes there. Troillet descended the whole way to base camp the same night; but Loretan, suffering his first attack of frost-bite, spent a night at a bivouac below the Great Shelf. These last two climbs left Loretan with bitter thoughts - the 87 tents standing below the Khumbu icefall in 1994; the fixed charge of 1000 US dollars to pass through the icefall; the frenzied media activity at the base camp below Kangchenjunga in 1995; the expressed intention of the French climber, Benoit Chamoux, to race him to the top... . 'There was a time", he says, 'hardly 10 years ago, when I was proud to belong to a large family of climbers; today I feel almost ashamed." He feels that the origins of mountaineering, which developed out of a spirit of humility and the love of mountains, appear to have been forgotten; and that the quest for heroics and public acclaim are among the saddest aspects of modem alpinism.
Two visits to Antarctica in December 1994 and 1995 provided Loretan with a sense of adventure such as he is no longer able to experience in the Alps; the solitude of that almost pristine region teaching him more than he had learnt from 25 years of Alpine climbing. Climbing alone, he made two difficult first ascents. He has always regarded solo climbing as the purest form of Alpinism. When queried recently about accidents in the Himalaya, he commented that the encouraging fact is that they prove that the mountains merit greater respect. It has been said that Loretan sometimes plays down the severity of his climbs: this arises from his desire to avoid an heroic image. Because he places a high value on personal freedom, he is not a seeker of public acclaim, shunning sponsorship and media attention. There is no mystery about Loretan's Himalayan successes. They have been based upon an ultra-light style, astonishing speed, absence of competitive pressures, and a clear realisation of when to turn back. Amongst his golden rules are an honest approach to ethical values, respect for the environment, and the belief that the quality of the climb is more important than the summit.
This slim, profusely-illustrated book is an unpretentious record of an exceptional mountaineering career. Whilst the modesty and integrity of his character are faithfully revealed by his style, Erhard Loretan does not shrink from expressing deep feelings about some of the uglier trends of modem Alpinism. The original French edition has enjoyed a huge success; a German edition is under preparation, and it is to be hoped that an English translation will follow.
Trevor H. Braham
THE OCHRE BORDER. A Journey Through the Tibetan Frontierlands. By Justine Hardy. Pp. 191, 4 colour plates, 16 b/w photos, 1 map, 1995. (Constable and co., London, £ 10.95).
This book begins with promising to take readers to Spiti which, according to the author, 'in an atlas it appears on the dotted line between the pink of India and the yellow spread of China." I do not know from where she gets these colours, but she amply proves that her knowledge about the area is certainly 'pink". Spiti is in the pink of India, part of India, and not between India and China.
With four companions she starts off 'in search of something that most people believe no longer exists; a place cushioned from the outside world for seventy years." Nothing special happened in Spiti exactly 70 years ago or nearby this chosen date. It is an ancient civilisation. Again shades of 'pink". I immediately remember hundreds of Indians who have travelled there, many persons — teachers, scholars, wildlife experts, soldiers, trekkers and mountaineers — have stayed there and roamed deep inside these valleys. Spiti has bus services, postal services, schools and many of Spitians are working in the plains of India. Their contact with outside world is quite large specially in the last decade.
If you are 'a western explorer only syndrome" type, then also we have several early visitors to Spiti; J.O.M. Roberts in 1940, Sir Peter Holmes and Trevor Braham in 1955-56, and even as recently as 1994 Paul Nunn climbing a high peak there. I have been there four times to Spiti between 1983 and 1994. There are at least two books and several articles published about Spiti. She does not list them in the bibliography even. Instead we have several general guide books and Rudyard Kipling being listed. Kipling never wrote about Spiti, but only about Kinnaur.
She starts off for a trek to Spiti over the well-trodden Pin Parvati pass, crossed even by shepherds, and tells the readers about the dangers and that she is the first one to do so in seven decades. As she travels we are given a dose of everything about India; the drug scene, sadhus, theory of Karma, Buddhism, official language, buses, bon religion — everything except Spiti. She visits just one or two villages and two monasteries and returns. The real stuff these 'pink-explorers" are made of !
One seriously wonders whether the publishers have any knowledge of what they take on to print. Aren't they supposed to inquire at least about the area they are publishing about or author's credentials ? Don't they have some duty towards things like correct facts, history or even paying customer ?
In the very villages she visited, Spitians were watching television, using solar-powered electric gadgets, had voted in the Indian elections and were quietly going about their business like for centuries. They were not waiting to be 'discovered'. I am sure today they are laughing all the way to the bank (they have that institution also) with visits of such 'explorers'.
The author mentions in the beginning and towards the end about a eight year old Buddhist novice who asks her 'Do you read the books of Julian Barnes?' Both have not read much of it and the author ends with a hope, 'As long as there is the common bond that neither the young novice monks nor I understand the books of Julian Barnes, we may all perhaps progress together'. As long as one does not read such books about it, one can enjoy Spiti better.
Harish Kapadia
THE LOVE OF MOUNTAINS IS BEST. Climbs and Travels from K2 to Kathmandu. By Robert H. Bates. Pp. 493, 8 colour plates, 134 b/w photos, 11 maps, 1994. (Peter E. Randall Publishers, Portsmouth, $ 24.95).
Robert H. Bates started visiting mountains when he was just five and thereafter over a span of next 75 years, he has covered a wide area from Alaska to China, climbing mountains and visiting places.
Noteworthy among these is his first visit to K2 in 1938 as a member of the first American expedition, 29 years after the Duke of the Abruzzi had first attempted the peak. This five member expedition was led by the legendary Dr Charles Houston and included Bill House and Dick Burdsall. The team recceed the area and reached a record height of over 26,000 ft on the Abruzzi ridge. Failing weather prevented them from making any further headway as they decided to retreat just in time before the weather could worsen. But the team had foreseen the route to be extremely difficult to negotiate on the descent. This decision was to prove right years later when climbers found themselves trapped to their death in the higher camps up due to extreme cold winds and furious storm.
Bates was to visit K2 again in 1953. This expedition also tried the Abruzzi ridge route, but raging storm pinned down the team in Camp VIII at 25,800 ft. Worsening conditions of members resulted in the team deciding to descend in slightly improved weather from Camp VIII. They were all swept down by an avalanche, but were miraculously saved at the edge of a cliff by a single belay of Pete Scheoning. While the members were putting their act together, the injured Art Gilky was swept away into the abyss by another strong avalanche. After this tragic incident, others made a remarkable descent to the base camp prompting George Bell to remark, "K2 is a killer mountain - it tries to kill you."
Bates, in this book, has given a vivid account of his other climbs in the Alaska, Canada and China. His visits to Italy, Mexico, India, Nepal and Egypt have also been well described. All these events have brought him a wealth of friends and companions who have shared the joy and fun of climbing the mountains together. They have also witnessed the sad and tragic death of their dear friends in mountain accidents.
Together they share a bond which Bates feels, is second only to his family. In fact, his marriage to Gail was a result of his association with the mountains. These friends have made his life rich and meaningful.
The author is one of the living legends of pre World War II era. He has described his climbs in the minutest details. Each chapter has been well supplemented by photographs. The K2 section has been well illustrated with sketches of the route. Though Bates, a teacher by profession, has admitted that this is not his biography, I find that the book very closely resembles a mountaineer's biography. At the end of it all, I also find the sub-title is a little misplaced and it would have been apt to describe the book as 'Climbs and Travels from Alaska to China.'
Vinit Rau
A MOUNTAIN OF HAPPINESS. By Brig. D.K.Khullar. Pp. 118, 84 colour plates, 4 b/w photos, 3 maps, 1995. (Interprint, New Delhi, Rs. 480).
An expedition taking a month to set base camp, the Indian air force arranging for an AN 12 for a reconnaissance flight over the Saser massif, the Indian army as usual making a big assault with a huge team of members, support from local villagers and 30 Ladakh scouts, the team waiting beyond their time for the weather to clear, with the author quoting Jimmy Roberts' statement of 1946 stating the climb to be impossible leads us to read the book hoping to discover what went behind making the 'impossible' climb 'possible' after 40 years. Forty years after climbing has become easier technically, with equipment more suited for big wall climbs.
What we discover however is an article on the climb, a summary of events with not much details of the actual climbing and technical details. Considering the fact that this climb was the first successful ascent of Saser Kangri from the west side, the author could have done better in providing more details of the climb which would have been very useful to future expeditions especially and provided for interesting reading. With only 45 pages dedicated to the climb the book reads more as a series of events put together using the diaries written by different members though there is the pictorial write up which has made the book interesting. The success of this expedition did a lot to the morale of Indian climbing considering the fact that 10 members of this team belonged to the tragic Indian army expedition of 1985 where 5 officers had lost lives. This team also had some of the finest climbers like late N.D. Sherpa and late Lopsang Tsering to whom, the author has dedicated this book to.
As usual this book also seems to go down in the history of the Indian mountaineering expeditions as just another series of events and articles put together when the potential for an Indian book written and printed to be acclaimed in the international mountaineering circle is badly needed. Considering the fact that so many expeditions have taken place in India, we still wait for a book on a mountaineering expedition to give justice to the technique, the strength, the participation and the dedication that the Indian mountaineers possess and shows on an expedition. The book is written almost a decade after the expedition had been organised and hence one looked forward to the story with keenness. But the story is briefly told. There are a dozen photographs posing with higher officers and dignitaries, not useful to anyone. Some photos are poorly printed. The snow leopards could not be seen at all in the photo and you are expected to locate three of them. The Appendices cover food, equipment and other organisational details which is quite outdated in the present day expedition writing. To top it all there are lists of all 'Mountaineering clubs in India" and a list of 'Adventure-Travel Tour Operators in India". One has to 'write" a book and not just 'fill-in" pages.
One still awaits a good Indian expedition book and reference material on Saser Kangri. We will wait after all 'Don't dismiss dreams, to be without dreams is to be without hope and to be without hope is to be without purpose.'
Motup Chewang
THE BURGESS BOOK OF LIES. By Adrian and Alan Burgess. Pp. 463, 23 colour plates, 1994. (Cloudcap, Seattle, $ 30).
'May be true. May not be true. Better you believe". The Burgess Book of Lies begins with this Sherpa saying and the reader goes on reading pages after pages of fascinating Burgess stories. In the late sixties, a new wave of English mountaineers started dominating the mountaineering scene in the Alps as well as in the Himalaya with other mountain ranges of the world. The Burgess twins were in the forefront and rightly earned the nick name 'The Terrible Twins." This can be seen as the records of their bold and adventurous climbs found way in the literature written during the period by all other leading climbers at that time such as Peter Broadman, Alan Rouse to name just a few.
It is a delight to read the twin's version of the extraordinary stories about themselves, on and off the mountains. They seem to be almost inseparable right from their childhood adventures. A positive advantage of this 'twins syndrome" was their complete faith in each other's capacity which ultimately helped them to climb difficult routes even without adequate protection. Starting from their home town, Holmfirth, their horizons widened continuously reaching the most remote comers of the world.
Their reputation as hard, skilled and strong climbers is evident if one just goes through their achievements. This book particularly tells us the stories from the British hills to the Alps to the Patagonian mountains and to the Himalaya. They have climbed numerous mountains around the world tackling most hazardous routes and conditions. The story telling form of this book, in which both of them are experts, makes it an exciting flow of words, full of personalities, incidents and wild experiences.
Though one sometimes may feel that mountaineering is left behind but actually it is a story of the men (and unavoidably women) in and around the mountains.
Adrian Burgess has done most of the writing part of this book with a great support of his twin, Alan. Their rapport in writing is equally good as in their climbing. And with the same faith they have ventured in this field too. After such a vast amount of mountaineering experience, they both are still the same enthusiastic storytellers and climbers.
The book contains quite a few illustrations but no maps. May not be useful for scholarly researcher of mountaineering literature but surely all enthusiastic mountaineers (even arm - chaired ones) will love to read it. I am already looking forward to the second volume of the 'Twin's lies".
Rajesh Gadgil
AUREL STEIN. Pioneer of the Silk Road. By Annabel Walker. Pp. 393, 29 b/w photos, 4 maps, 1995. (John Murray, London, £ 25).
In June 1932 at a meeting in London, the speaker, Stein's old friend Sir Edward Maclagan, used an Italian anecdote to explain Stein's approach to his work. The story concerned a young officer in the army of the eighteenth-century Iranian ruler, Nadir Shah, who hearing his king qualify his praise of a certain sword by the observation that it was too short, gave the word of command: 'One pace to the front'. That, observed Maclagan, had been the motto of Stein's life. Whatever difficulties he had encountered, he had relied on his own resources, taken 'one pace to the front' and conquered all set backs, (p.288)
This is a biography of Aurel Stein, who true to the above quote had pushed archaeology 'one pace to the front'. Bom in 1862 in Hungary, he studied Sanskrit and comparative philosophy in Vienna before moving to England to study further. He reached India in 1887 and worked in Lahore and Calcutta. From here, with support of the government he organised his first expedition to Chinese Turkestan which lasted two years (1900-1901) and ended by connecting the areas with Indian Trigonometrical Survey.
His second expedition, in 1906 to 1908, was the most important one where he explored the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan and discovered the Caves of Thousand Buddhas at Tun- huang. He bribed the custodian and carried back with him thousands of manuscripts and paintings from the caves back to Europe. This trend was repeated in his successive expeditions when he returned to the caves and other areas of Central Asia.
In later years of his life he worked in the Middle East, particularly Iran.
Stein's devotion to archaeology went beyond any boundaries, including his personal life. He even remained a bachelor to devote himself fully to exploration and always rejected any suggestions to be tied down.
He responded far more positively to a remark made by his friend and colleague, the philologist Sir George Grierson, who wrote on one occasion that he wished Stein, like himself, could have found a wife. 'But what then would have become of Central Asia! You chose her for a bride, with the blessing of your Patron Saint, Hsuen Tsiang; and you are a confirmed monogamist.' Stein called Grierson's conceit 'happy and delightfully true', (p.324)
But there are many who doubt the motives of Stein and others like him in taking away the art-effects to Europe from their natural habitats of Central Asia. Some argue that with the ' Cultural Revolution' in China all these would have been destroyed while today they are well-preserved in the European museums. But the debate continues.
In the preface to the Chinese edition of Peter Hopkirk's Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, Duan Wenjie wrote of the history of 'robbing and plundering' recorded in the book, referred to Stein and others as 'robbers' and 'thieves', and expressed the hope that all Tun-huang relics would one day be returned to the caves.
It was argued how an Englishman might feel if a foreign archaeologist bribed the custodian of an old English monastery to hand over medieval manuscripts, offering this as a direct comparison with Stein's behaviour at Tun-huang. But the differences are clear. Anyone hoping to smuggle such manuscripts out of Britain would know they were removing them from a country able and eager to conserve them, and with laws governing the ownership and removal of such objects, (p.353)
One also has to look at it with the care and study which the objects have received in their new homes, including a museum in Delhi. It is argued that this would not have been possible if they had remained in Central Asia, awaiting Chinese scholars to arrive many years later. One can only look at it from the times in which Stein operated
The use of hindsight to judge a person's actions in the past all too often indicates a lack of imagination and, more worryingly , a wish to deny the reality of that past. It seems glib to condemn a man for acting in a way entirely consistent with the period in which he lived and the Western world in which he was raised, (p.354)
However Stein's claim to greatness cannot be denied. He is perhaps the least-known explorer and archaeologist and this well-researched biography throws light on all aspects of his life. Sensitively written, it brings out the travels and travails of Stein's life well. He died in Kabul in 1943. This book a worthy tribute to this great explorer, like the epitaph on his grave.
Stein's grave lies in the shady surroundings of Kabul's Christian cemetery — miraculously unharmed by the battles around — as a proof that only death denied him the chance he had been wanting all his life. 'He enlarged the bounds of knowledge', says its inscription. More important than this tribute, however, are the final words on the tablet. For someone who felt himself so often an outsider, who was so touched by marks of friendship, a memorial that describes him as 'A man greatly beloved' is surely the best tribute of all. (p.355) "
Harish Kapadia
VERTICLE PLEASURES. The Secret Life of a Tax man. By Mick Fowler. Pp. 224, 43 colour plates, 4 maps, 1995. (Hodder and Stoughton, London, £ 17.99).
Its hard to imagine, such a irrepressible climber as Mick Fowler, shifting through sheaves of paper work or doing whatever he is supposed to do in some British Civil Service Office, when he could be indulging himself in Vertical Pleasures.
After the initial instructions to climbing by his father, Fowler quickly graduated from his friend Ian's 'Banana Sandwich" puking days on Sandstone outcrops south of London, to go on to climb in the Scotland, the Alps and virtually anything and everything vertical that he could lay his hands on.
Particularly interesting is his fascination with the obscure climbs in unlikely places, such as on the sixty five feet icicle caused due to a leaking pipe outside St. Panoras railway station or the summer climbs on the Chalk Cliffs of Dover in perfect ice-climbing style not withstanding the hilarious altercation with the British police or in the former case with the coastguards. In between these innovative climbs the author managed a number of firsts on the British mainland rocks.
The account of author's forays outside the local climbing scene to the major mountain ranges, to Talliraju in Peru, Bojohagur and Spantik in the Karakoram and Cerro Kishtwar in the Indian Himalaya, make an interesting and at the same time an exceedingly funny reading.
Although the climbs described are obviously difficult, Mick Fowler has by his inimitable style made the details delightfully stimulating.
His escapades in 'Deflowerer", the leaky and dubious inflatable boat used to reach the otherwise unreachable sea stacks around British isles demonstrates the keen sense of adventure of the author to generally go where no man has gone before.
After reading the book, it is no surprise to learn that climbs which are termed as impossible by the experts are referred to as 'Mick Fowler Country"!
The book is curiously sub-titled as 'The Secret Life of a Taxman". I will leave it for the readers to find out the meaning of this or to read the article 'An Editor Remembers" by Margaret Body in this Himalayan Journal (Vol. 53) for an explanation!
Vinay Hegde
A HARD DAY'S SUMMER. Six Classic North Faces Solo. By Alison Hargreaves. (Hodder and Stoughton, London, £ 16.99).
One of the most important factors in being a good author is to have something worthwhile to write about. In the 1960's, the great French alpinist and guide Gaston Rebuffat wrote a famous book Starlight and Storm in which he gives a spirited account of his ascents of six of the great north faces of the Alps: the Eiger, Matterhorn, Grandes Jorasses, Dru, Piz Badile and Cima Grande. One could quibble about his choice - the first three would probably be on any informed alpinist's list, but other north faces (e.g. Droites, Finsterarhorn) might contend with the other three. But Rebuffat's choice is undoubtedly six of the best, if not indisputably the six best. Subsequently, these six north faces have been regarded as a sort of north-facer's yardstick, a target for ambitious alpinists, and are frequently referred to as the six north faces.
A number of alpinists had previously climbed them all in one season, but in the summer of 1993, Alison Hargreaves became the first person, man or women, to solo them all in one season.
Anyone who has done any one of these routes will confirm their greatness and seriousness, but to solo them all inside a year was a magnificent achievement of body and spirit. Moreover, Alison did so in poorer than average summer weather, and in very fine style rapidly and unlike some continental media-driven record-setters, without expensive valley support and helicopter transport to and from the routes.
But my main task is to review Alison's book rather then her climbs. Alison is an exceptional mountaineer. But her writing is noticeably unexceptional. Perhaps this is its strength. The book is not great literature; it is a straightforward account of her summer's activities on and off the mountains. This is totally unpretentious writing, and easy reading. I am not the most determined reader, but I had no difficulty picking the book up and reading it at one sitting. This says much for its style, but also points to a possible fault: it is very short only 117 pages to the body of the book. The rest is made up to 158 pages with various appendices. One of these I found interesting (the potted history of the six mountains), but some of the others I confess to not even reading in full (e.g. the list of equipment and supplies: I'm not really interested in how many pairs of underwear she took). I do not like the over-abundance of appendices, but I'm glad they were included, if only to make up the publisher's weight, rather than to pad out the main text and lose it's conciseness.
I suppose her appendix of sponsors and suppliers did have to be included, but did she also have to make frequent and to me annoying references in the main text : ..I refuelled with a litre of Isostar... and Jordan's Frusli bars., ... I climbed into my favourite Brasher boots...? This sort of thing may be good for buttering up the sponsors, but it is distracting to the reader.
The book starts with a couple of chapters about the background to the author's alpine climbing, and motivation for the six north faces project. We then follow her, her husband Jim (JB), their two children in Perkins the landrover, along with kitchen sink and a mountain of gear (both climbing and domestic) out to the Alps in late March 1993. She then had a frustrating period of over two months in which none of the six was possible, due to the bad weather, a situation any alpinist will sympathise with. But this did enable her, in between caring for her offspring, to get herself very fit, which was of long-term benefit to the project. Although he is only written about in short bursts, JB emerges as a source of strength and stability in the background during this period, as well as later on while she was climbing.
Finally, the women's angle. Thankfully, the book contains no overt feminism. But the unwritten message is clear enough. Women can perform well on big mountains. For some years, they have been doing so on rock, but like athletics, where the marathon was not on the women's programme for years after they competed well in shorter distance events, so the endurance side of women's climbing has lagged behind. This book points the way to other potentially ambitious women mountaineers.
Dave Wilkinson
SPELEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOUTH ASIA INCLUDING THE HIMALAYAN REGIONS. By H.D. Gebauer, R. Mansfield, C. Chabert, and H. Kusch. Pp. 226, 1995. (Annchair Adventure Press, Germany, DM 67, available from H.D. Gebauer, Marktplatz 32, D-73525, Schwabisch Gmund, Germany).
When in 1969 the Himalayan Journal Vol. XXIX published review of my modest 18 pages India Underground, I had little idea how much interest it would stimulate. Since then several expeditions have been active in the field; and locals have been active in cave research. In 1983 Herr Gebauer, having been able to spend much more time in libraries and in the field, published his 181 Caves of India and Nepal (reviewed in the H.J 40. 1983).
There turned out to be so much literature hidden away in widely scattered sources and many languages that this latest bibliography has required four authors to gather the 1417 references to all subterranean phenomena in Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet. Bangladesh has been omitted because the authors failed to find any relevant literature.
The papers listed include all the earth sciences, mines and tunnels, cave and artefact descriptions, biospeleology, cultural history, archaeology and pre-history, cave temples and rock art, speleohistory and a miscellaneous section for all the unclassificable material. Brief biographies of important cave workers, and some illustrations, are included.
This is an indispensable reference tool for all researchers who are interested in the underworld of the Himalaya and Indian subcontinent, and should be available in every major library which deals with orientalia. My only complaint is the poor quality of the binding of a book to which reference will be made repeatedly for many years to come. My copy disintegrated before this review was written.
S. A. Craven
SPY ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD. By Sydney Wignall. Pp. 267, 1996. (Canongate, Edinburgh, £16.99).
Perhaps it is fortunate that this book was published forty years after its story took place; with the wisdom of hindsight and the perspective that history (even if it be recently elapsed) affords, this true story of adventure and espionage can be fully appreciated. Consider some of the events that have had a bearing on China, Tibet and India as the years rolled on from 1955:
In 1959 the Dalai Lama fled to India and established a Tibetan govt-in-exile even as the Chinese Communists overrun the culture and economy of Tibet.
In 1962 India caught unprepared as China launched a well- prepared offensive on her northern borders, along the Himalayan chain. Only a threat from USA (those were years of the Cold War) persuade China to withdraw; impertinently, she hanged on to the hundreds of square km that comprise the Aksai Chin plateau in Ladakh.
In the ensuing decades, the strategic Karakoram Highway was completed, linking Pakistan's Baltistan and the Sinkiang province of China and roads linked Nepal and Tibet.
Way back in 1955, it was a different world; less cynical, perhaps even naive by today's standards. When Sydney Wignall floated the first ever Welsh Himalayan expedition to Western Nepal, he was led by a curious twist of circumstances to extend his adventures into an illegal intrusion of the Chinese controlled territory of Tibet for an attempt (also unofficial) on the then unclimbed 7000 m Gurla Mandhata. Against the background of the Nehru-Chou En Lai "Panclishccl' accord, he was 'recruited' as an amateur spy by the Indian military intelligence and was asked to report on the Chinese military buildup in southwest Tibet, near Taklakot. An intriguing series of meetings with H W. Tobin and the legendary Bill Tilman, not to mention his cloak and dagger encounters with 'Singh' and 'Cricket wallah' sets him on course for an adventure that would change his life.
To give away more than this broad outline of the plot would be unfair to the prospective reader. Suffice it to say that this is a tale of incredible high adventure and incarceration among the then largely unexplored mountains of western Nepal and southwest Tibet and an epic journey over the 18,482 ft Urai Lekh pass in winter. It is replete with obnoxious characters straight out of a B grade action film, ingenuity in prison life, humour and tenacity.
With a plot as rich as this, the literary style adopted becomes secondary, though one does not expect as many proof reading errors as there are in this otherwise elegant production.
The book was shortlisted for the Boardman-Tasker literary prize and in the opinion of this reviewer it is a pity that it was not voted to the top slot. It remains a ratting good read!
Aloke Surin
SHORT REVIEWS
(Monesh Devjani)
FOOTPRINTS ON THE PEAKS: Mountaineering in China. By Zhou Zheng and Liu Zhenkai. Pp. 228, 36 b/w illustrations, 22 colour illustrations, 6 maps, 1995. (Cloudcap, Seattle, $ 30).
This is probably one of the first books on Chinese mountaineering. This book explores the history of climbing in China from as early as 95 B.C. to the relatively modern climbs like the British attempts on Everest, to the successful Chinese ascent of Everest from the north. It also covers the second Chinese ascent of Everest when 9 members including a lady got to the top.There are accounts of ascents and attempts on Shishapangma, Kongur, K-2 and a plethora of rare peaks. There are some good colour photographs but the black and white illustrations could be much better. This book is quite interesting and provides a rare insight into the mountains of China as well as some of the good Chinese climbs about which little has been written before.
KARAKORAM. Graphic Index of Maps. By Servei General D'Informacio De Muntanya. Pp. 117, 10 maps, 1996. (Servei General d'lnformacio de Muntanya, Sabadell).
The Graphical Index of maps is a bibliographical index of maps and sketches of the Karakoram. The main objective of this work is to provide a cartographic compilation of the Karakoram for Alpine use.
IN THE HIMALAYAS. Journeys through Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan . By Jeremy Bemstien . Pp. 342,21 b/w illustrations, 1996. (Swan Hill Press, Shrewsbury, England, nps).
In The Himalayas is a vivid description of Bemstien's travel through Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan . The author describes his visits to the Everest region from Nepal, Tibet, his visit to the Kailas and to the forbidden kingdom of Bhutan in great detail. Apart from describing the areas in great detail he has also dwelt on the history, politics and culture of the people of the areas he visited.
CHO OYU HIMAL AND KYAJO RI HIMAL. By Jan Kielkowski. Pp. 151, 59 sketches, 10 maps, 1995. (Explo Publishers, Poland, nps).
This book on Cho Oyu and Kyajor Ri Himal gives all possible details on these peaks and the surrounding mountains. Details of expeditions and ascents are also given. The various routes on the main peaks in the region, particularly Cho Oyu, are illustrated with excellent sketches accompanied by a small write- up describing the route which make it very informative for any prospective climber or student of these peaks. Overall an excellent book which could have enhanced its value by adding photographs.
LADAKH. Crossroads Of High Asia. By Janet Rizvi. Second Edition. Pp. 290, 33 colour plates, 12 b/w photos, 1996. (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Rs. 545).
Second edition of the book first published in 1983, reviewed in the Himalayan Journal, Vol. 40. This book deals with historical, social, cultural and political aspects of Ladakh. There are interesting descriptions of places and monasteries around Leh. A good book, as its popularity has proved, about Ladakh for anyone visiting the land or aspiring to know more about it.
MOUNTAINS OF THE HIMALAYA. Editors. (In Japanese) Pp. 648, many b/w illustrations, many maps, 1996.
Written entirely in Japanese this book contains some of the best b/w photographs of the Himalaya seen. It has photographs, specially taken for this book, covering peaks of Bhutan, Nepal, and the Karakoram. English captions to the photographs almost makes you wish to learn Japanese — to know more about them. Best reference b/w photographs available today are here.
- KNIGHTS OF NOTHINGNESS
(MIKEL VAUSE) - RECOLLECTIONS OF AN EDITOR
(MARGARET BODY) - THE NAME OF THE WORLD'S HIGHEST PEAK
(MICHAEL WARD) - PILGRIMAGE ROUND MEILI XUESHAN
(TAMOTSU NAKAMURA) - THE ASCENT OF SINIOLCHU
(SEN HIRAIZUMI) - EXPLORATION AND CLIMBS IN NORTHEAST SIKKIM
(DOUG SCOTT) - THE INDIAN ASCENT OF QOMOLUNGMA BY THE NORTH RIDGE
(P. M. DAS) - A TALE OF TWO VALLEYS
(HARISH KAPADIA) - COWBOYS AND INDIANS
(ALOKE SURIN) - NO PICNIC IN PARVATI
(GRAHAM E. LITTLE) - HIMALAYAN JOURNAL: VOLS. XIX-XXIX (1955/56-69)
(AAMIR ALI) - LIFE IN THE FREEZER
(STEVE BERRY) - A DAWN IN WINTER
(HARISH KAPADIA) - A PEAK BAGGER'S GUIDE TO THE EASTERN KISHTWAR
(SIMON RICHARDSON) - BRITISH NUSHIK EXPEDITION, 1996
(DAVE WILKINSON) - ALL ALONE WHEN TIME DISAPPEARS
(MASAFUMI TODAKA) - EXPEDITIONS AND NOTES
- BOOK REVIEWS
- IN MEMORIAM
- CORRESPONDENCE
- CLUB PROCEEDINGS, 1996
- EDITORIAL