5 comments about Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays.

1. Bill brings back memories of life in China and the amazing difficulties people deal with daily.
   My time in Guangzhou in the south only varied by climate with Bill's Xian existence, and his wish to return to these education-loving students is familiar as I observe the attitudes of American students falter. I could smell the baoudze and see the Overseas Chinese tai chi in the parks just from enveloping myself in the book on my Metro train. Missed a few stops, too. Thank you Bill for your caring rendition of the life and I wish you continued travel to China.



2. If you are looking for the "definitive China book," this is not it. Read something else. But if you are interested in how Americans cope with a year or two's posting as a teacher in a Chinese university -- or if you have been, or will be, on such a posting yourself -- you may well enjoy this book.
   
   It's organized as a series of vignettes which average five to ten pages. The vignettes are kind of like diary entries. They describe daily life, bureaucracy, teaching, food, travel, friends, housing, and so forth. This kind of information can be hard to find. Of course the author went to China in the late 1980s, and a lot has changed since then.
   
   This is not a book that was buffed and polished, edited, re-edited, and beautifully designed by a big publishing house looking to make it into a best seller, like Peter Hessler's "River Town." The up side is that it is very genuine and lacks the slightly annoying preciousness of "River Town." It's more like going to a slide presentation at the house of your neighbor who just came back from China, and being handed a photocopy of the journal they kept.



3. Travel stories of teaching English in Japan have almost become cliche. This story of a Minnesota native visiting China was an interesting twist on the old tale. It was enjoyable reading Mr. Holm's adventures (and misadventures - those always seem to be more enjoyable) as he visited China, before it became the trendy Giant. Another variance on similar works is that Mr. Holm is a legitamite college teacher, not a wanderer using education as a visa. As such, his writing is of a higher quality than usual in the genre, and he is more qualified to speak of the educational environment.
   
   The observations are very interesting, especially as the experience is pre-Tienneman. What's it like when the communists are watching your every move? How do is teaching in China different than Minnesota? What's Mickey Mouse mean over there? The story meanders in alphabetic manner, perhaps also suggesting that our trip memories don't always follow a linear logic.
   
   As the title would suggest, the strongest pieces of the book are the chapters of the return. It is hard to identify personal tranformation in the midst of the journey. You notice it when you come home crazy.



4. I have three, soon to be four adopted kids from China so I read as many books as I can about China. I was really looking forward to this book as some fellow adoptive parents had given it good reviews. I did enjoy the book and there were certain sections that were more entertaining than others but the main problem I had with it was parts of it were too literary and intellectual for my taste. I was looking more for a good fun read but unfortunately I don't share the same enthusiasm for literature and was lost of some of the references. China has also changed quite a bit since his visits in the 80s but it was interesting to see his perspective as an English teacher when access was certainly not what it is today. My favorite chapter was the Swiss Army Knife chapter and I got some real chuckles out of it and I am now seriously considering a new Swiss Army knife for my husbands birthday so he will have one for our next trip to China. I think Peter Hesslers book River Town overall is an easier read but the nice thing about Mr. Holm's book is you can just pick it up and read any chapter since its not sequential. Its a good book to read when you only have a few minutes at a time and you won't feel lost when you get a chance to come back to it.



5. As an expat currently living in China, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I find myself hoping to read other books by him as well.

5 comments about Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China.

1. Story of how Rachel goes to live and work in Beijing and finds herself starring as a "typical American woman" in a successful Chinese sitcom. The book provides a realistic and insightful look into cultural differences and (mis)understandings between China and the West.



2. Just riotously funny. What a fantastic read. So much smarter than most "girl" memoirs. I actually couldn't put this one down.



3. I got this because I'm currently learning Chinese, and thinking about visiting China some day. Rachel is an excellent writer, very observant of detail (her own emotions and others' behaviors), but not drowning the reader in irrelevant and wordy prose. Rachel spent several years in Beijing, really making an effort to be absorbed in the culture, and the experience pays off. I would love to read her experiences if she decides to try living other places as well!



4. I spent many years in China. Trust me, the writer of this book was more or less COMPLETELY unknown there. Idiotically, I still read some of this book.
   
   It's just a self-promoting waste of time and it feeds a million-and-one stereotypes.



5. This is a delightfully humorous memoir, written by a young woman whose first job out of college was at an American firm in Beijing. That led to her being cast as a "foreign babe" [the English translation] in a Chinese soap opera. I read this book weeks before my own trip to Beijing. Though I am a different generation, I found her paragraphs about Chinese views of Americans to be very useful--and accurate--for my own travel.

No comments about The Silk Road: Xi'an to Kashgar, Eighth Edition (Odyssey Illustrated Guides).

5 comments about Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar.

1. This book is full of unsubtantiated racist drivel. The premise is that the Chinese can't play basketball. Lamaar does not source his claims - it's just like that he's making up stuffs from thin air.
   
   Regarding his claim that Yao was somehow bred. An Sports Illustrated (SI) article asked why is there only one Yao Ming.
   Why didn't they "created" more Yao Ming's if what Lamaar claimed is really factual? In case people don't know. Yao is the only child.
   
   If you look at other NBA caliber Chinese basketball players such Sun Yue, Yi Jianlian, Tang Zhengdon, Xue Yuyang (drafted by Denver), and even Wang Zhizhi. Their parents were not basketball players.
   
   There is no logic to Lamaar's unsubstantiated drivel.



2. This book is a very readable biography of Yao Ming.
   But I had been led to hope that it would inform me about China's future. I'm disappointed at how little it tells me about that subject. It provides some moderately interesting tidbits of information about China's recent history, but the book doesn't attempt to provide the kind of understanding of China that would tell us whether those tidbits are a glimpse of a past that is being abandoned or whether they contain useful indications of China's future.



3. I am NOT a huge sports nut...you know the kind who rattles off stats and knows all the players, but I really enjoyed this book. The story of Yao Ming was very interesting especially as it interlaces with China's history. I think it gives a very interesting look into the evolution of Chinese sports, politics and government. It kept me interested and I really looked forward to picking it up again every evening to read.



4. I first saw Yao Ming in a Marriott Courtyard lobby during an AAU tour in '98. I was wowed by the secrecy around the guy at the hotel. Since then, I've been waiting for the real story...No fluff. Well, Larmer captures the story of Yao Ming and the rise of basketball in China with his research. Even better, he coorelates the rise of basketball to the development of the Chinese economic boom. Major props...
   
   Now, will critics of Yao please read this book about the environment that surrounded Yao and Shanghai during his development? Will they please realize that Yao would be better suited for a team concept? It's just unfortunate that he started off his NBA career by landing into a thug party in Houston.
   
   Critics have been killing Yao for becoming too soft or for not stepping up to the mantle. Yet, what they don't realize is that Yao is from entirely different culture that professes team not the "I" like the majority of today's NBA superstars. He's a team player and a product of Soviet Training who places the group's interests above personal accolades...Does anyone remember the late '80s version of Arvydas Sabonis?
   
   Larmer touches on all of the subjects surrounding the development of Yao Ming by detailing politics, the reign of Mao, alternative health and herbs, Soviet training methods, Nike, academies, agents, the NBA and sports marketing. Tie this in with 'World is Flat', and you'll see a glimpse of sports in the 21st century.



5. The story of Yao Ming--the NBA's tallest-ever player who stands 7'6''--is necessarily the tale of the "sports machine," of politics, and of international business deals. Caught up in the forces of history, Shanghai's own homeboy has emerged as a symbol of the love-hate, push-pull relationship between China and the West. In Operation Yao Ming, award-winning journalist Brook Larmer has penned an enlightening and somewhat controversial account of the factors that shaped Yao's life, paved his way to the NBA, and rendered him a bridge to and eventually a symbol of East-West relations.
   
   Tension is the key operative word in this story. There is tension between Yao's life as a basketball player and what it might be otherwise, between Yao's life as the star on a Chinese basketball team and as 2002's number one draft for the American NBA, between American basketball training methods and the Chinese sports training system, between communism and capitalism, between the concept of sports as a way to glorify a nation and sports for their own sake. As a pawn in the center of all of this, Yao served as the key to unlock the treasure chest in many high stakes games--sports and otherwise.
   
   While the book is intriguing for its presentation of research on the Chinese basketball system and how its star player winds up in the NBA, a few faults must be mentioned. Operation Yao Ming was derived from a series of articles written for Newsweek between 2000 and 2003. While that means that the book displays the merit of much research, it also unfortunately succumbs to the hazards of allowing all that information to be hastily thrown together. The result is that the reader faces some abrupt topic changes and must suffer egregious repetitions--at times Larmer even uses the exact same adjectives, metaphors, and phrases. It is surprising that a seasoned journalist would not have done a more thorough job editing his material or hired someone to do it for him.
   
   The book also gives nearly equal billing to Yao's idol and rival, Wang ZhiZhi. Though some people may find this annoying, others--especially basketball fans--will enjoy the way Wang and Yao's paths to and experiences with the CBA and the NBA are compared and contrasted, with the tension of one man's successes measured against the other's hard luck and occasional role reversals. I, however, found myself distracted by the extra plotline.
   
   Overall, Operation Yao Ming is both entertaining and interesting. Those who find the inner workings of the Chinese sports machine, international politics, basketball training, the business of basketball, international business, or above all Yao Ming, appealing will enjoy this book.

5 comments about The Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face Through the Killer Storm.

1. The other side of Everest is a pretty good book. It's a little bit shaky and confusing in the beginning but it gets better. The book is about this guy, Brian, who wants to climb Mt. Everest. This will be his third attempt to climb Everest, failing to do so in the times before. Brian asks a guy named Matt Dickenson, the writer of the book; to film him climbing. Matt has photographed and made many other movies about wild adventures before, but never something like Everest. He has climbed some other smaller mountains before also. Because he is away so much filming things his wife and him are having some problems. She says that if he goes he would be risking his life, and would be away from his kids and her for a long time. Matt decides that it would be good to be apart from his wife for a while, to let things cool down, so Matt gathers a team and a month or two later, they head off to Everest. During the weeks before he leaves he builds his body and prepares to climb. After arriving at the mountain they start to acclimate. They do that by climbing up to Advance Base camp and back down to Base camp. They do this a couple times then start off for the attempt at the summit. It is soon realized; by some of the experienced climbers on the team, that they are moving too slow and if they keep going at this pace, that they will most likely die. They have to make a choice; either to take a chance and keep going or turn back, with Brian failing once again. During the narrative, there are other little stories about the other teams that are climbing Everest. The author, Matt Dickenson, has a nice flow to his writing; although in some parts it gets kind of confusing. Also there are some black and white pictures that Matt took, which are interesting to look at. Matt uses lots of descriptive words that make great images in my mind. Will Brian and the team keep going? Will they make it to the summit? Read The Other Side of Everest to find out.



2. The south side of Everest gets most of the press, it would seem. Yet it's the north side that pioneers Mallory and Irvine nearly succeeded in scaling, in 1924; and the North Face had its full share of climbers during the now infamous spring 1996 season. Among those climbers was British film director Matt Dickinson.
   
   From the expedition's start, this is a different adventure than the one so famously recounted by Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air. Dickinson, pursuing an adventure filming project that has his wife delivering him to the airport in tears, takes his readers along through the lengthy trip that brings Western climbers to Base Camp on Everest's Tibet side. For this 30-something father of three young children, who has never before climbed above 20,000 feet, summiting Everest personally seems like a fool's project. He's there to make a film. Not to come down with a life-threatening case of "Summit Fever" - but that happens to him just the same, in the wake of the May 10 blizzard that catches so many expeditions unaware on both sides of the mountain.
   
   What makes this tale different from other author/climbers' accounts of May 1996 on Everest isn't just the fact that it offers a first-hand narrative of what happened before, during and after the storm on the North Face, where lives were also lost. It becomes truly intriguing as Dickinson's expedition, and others on the North Face that spring, pick up the pieces of their storm-savaged tents and equipment after the disaster. As climbers' bodies fail them, when the weather finally allows the expedition to proceed, and one by one they fall back, Dickinson finds himself joining forces with the only other expedition member able to continue.
   
   This is a grittier work in many ways than those written by more seasoned mountaineers, because so much of what those other authors find familiar - and only to be expected - is new to Dickinson. It's therefore a great read for those of us who love climbing books, but wouldn't dream of ascending a snow-clad peak ourselves. The one thing that annoyed me was the editors' insistence on converting metric measurements for American readers, every single time a measurement was mentioned. We Yanks aren't quite that dumb, I think, and it quickly became so irritating that it kept jolting me out of the story. That's my only real criticism of an otherwise first-class book.



3. If you're obsessed with Everest like a lot of us, you must NOT miss this book. I am booked for a 19 day trek through Nepal to Everest Base Camp this October just to see this great mountain in the flesh. It will be a humbling experience to walk where the "star mountaineers" have come to climb and die.
   
   I haven't read it for a few years and it is loaned out now, but when I get it back I'm reading it again.Dickinson is not a professional climber which makes it all the better to read. I believe he had not climbed a mountain higher than nearly sea level since he lives in the UK. I think his level of training to tackle this mountain was jogging or something to that affect.
   
   His narrative of driving through the brown, lifeless Himalaya valleys was riviting ,especially his description of the lone monk walking across this frozen desert clad only in a worn-torn blanket and barefoot. He puts us in the valley literally with word pictures. Also the description of being on a sheer frozen miles-down cliff on the north side of Everest with only a few inches of shelf to put a tent and no sounds of life but the sharp call of a lone raven circling the cliffs. I could just SEE what he was telling us and I could smell and taste the cold.
   
   The fact that he made the summit when the "experts" could not or got killed is amazing. I don't remember many pictures in this book if any, but it's a book that must be put in your Everest collection.



4. I enjoyed this book as much as "Into Thin Air". It was interesting to hear how the author, a fit, experienced trekking guide, learnt how to climb on this expedition. His descriptions of the expedition politics of the several groups there at the same time was nonjudgemental, and provided real insight to the difficult decisions that were made.



5. One of hundreds who gathered at the foot of Everest during the ill-fated climbing season of spring 1996 which claimed the lives of 12 (eight during the famous storm described by Jon Krakauer in "Into Thin Air"), British adventure filmmaker Matt Dickinson had no intention of summitting. He had never been higher than 20,000 feet and had summitted only twice - a Himalayan trekking peak and an Ecuadorian volcano.
   
   "To serious Himalayan mountaineers these were mere nodules, amusing warm-up molehills to be conquered before breakfast.
   Climbing them had been extremely difficult."
   
   He was there to document British actor Brian Blessed's third attempt at Everest. Now almost 60 and overweight, Blessed intended to follow the route up the North Face that his hero George Leigh Mallory and partner Andrew Irvine had disappeared from in 1924.
   
   But neophyte Dickinson did summit. He and mountaineer Alan Hinkes, who had been hired to do the summit filming, were the only members of their expedition to do so and Dickinson's book, "The Other Side Of Everest" describes events on the North Face during that fateful season.
   
   The book is a page-turner but it's hard to imagine a book about Everest that wouldn't be. Drawn by a challenge incomprehensible to most of us, all climbers risk death from cold, high winds, altitude sickness, dehydration, and sudden weather changes to say nothing of the forbidding terrain and chronic illnesses brought on by the inhospitable climate.
   
   "The air is dry, adding to the draining effects of altitude. Throats become sore. Lips become cracked. Fingers split and get infected. Minds start to wander, thinking of home - thinking of anything but the terrifying mountain that sits above the valley.
   I was excited to be at Everest Base Camp, but I can't say I liked it."
   
   And this is only the beginning. Dickinson's persistent nausea, throbbing headaches and throat infections (during the 1924 expedition a climber nearly choked on the lining of his own larynx) only grow worse as they climb. Falling rocks, sinkholes and avalanches add themselves to the lengthening list of dangers, headed, as always, by altitude and dehydration which not only sap strength but cloud judgment.
   
   Moving approximately one kilometer an hour, the team reaches an intermediate camp and chips ice for water. "I managed to get my gloves wet in the process of collecting the water and by the time I got back to the tent, the fabric had frozen as hard as iron. I had to prise my fingers apart with my other hand to remove them from the saucepan handle."
   
   The water must then be boiled lengthily. Here, on Everest, water sources are badly polluted. Each new camp presents itself littered with food packets, discarded equipment, toilet paper and human waste. Years of it.
   
   None of this sounds like any fun, to say the least. But though Dickinson doesn't say when it happens, probably doesn't know, his desire to summit takes hold. His team of five, including Blessed and Hinckes, reaches Advance Base Camp for their summit push May 9, the night before the killer storm.
   
   Although the day dawns clear, the team leader nixes a summit try, citing unstable weather, much to Dickinson's frustration. This is not the last time he questions the judgment of those more experienced. But Dickinson honestly, disarmingly, describes his own obnoxious rashness - fuming as the day proceeds bright and sunny and the nearby Indian expedition's lead climbers head for the summit.
   
   By 4 p.m. the weather had deteriorated. "Now I was extremely grateful that we were still at Camp Three." Three of the Indians returned, while three went on. And then the storm struck. Dickinson's description is full of drama and confusion - worry over the Indians, sporadic, fragmented radio reports and in the morning the astounding news from the South Face that 10 climbers were missing, including top guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer.
   
   As others have, Dickinson mulls over the motivations and actions of those who were on the mountain - the Japanese team that passed the dying Indians without helping, Hall breaking his own rules to help a client summit, Boukreev's descent from the summit. His conclusions, formed after his own summitting experience, are sympathetic and well reasoned.
   
   But the crux of this book is Dickinson's obsession to summit despite the storm and after his team leader has aborted Blessed's attempt. The description of this nightmarish climb by a man who clearly had no real idea what he was getting into - yet would not stop - is mind boggling.
   
   His summit drive begins with the death of an experienced climber in a tent beside him, crosses over the bodies of those who died years - and days - before, continues in the dark in winds strong enough to pluck a man off the sheer cliff edge, persists after the discovery of frozen water supplies signals inevitable dehydration and triumphs despite high altitude sickness.
   
   It's riveting and completely alien. Dickinson's excitement is palpable. Every minute of this trip grows more gruelingly unpleasant and terrifying than the moment before. It's hard to imagine how anyone would not seize the chance to abort, given so many reasonable opportunities to do so.
   
   Dickinson does not involve himself in the argument about neophytes on Everest (for obvious reasons) and he does not even have much to say about the piles of litter that so clearly disgust him. He concentrates on the challenge of Everest and the pull that makes some people risk their lives and health to climb it. While most of us will never quite comprehend their desire, the vicarious fascination of the climb is reward enough.

3 comments about The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Penguin Classics).

1. The Classic of the Mountains and Seas is a geographical gazetteer of ancient China and a catalogue of the natural and supernatural fauna and flora allegedly dating back to the 8th century BCE and spanning a period of perhaps a millennium. It is also a repository of strange spirits, curious folkways, medical beliefs, and other related oral and written traditions of earlier origins.

   In many ways, this Chinese classic bears some similarity in content and theme to the Hippocratic treatise "Airs, Waters, Places," although it is not commonly associated with being a part of the Chinese medical corpus as the latter is in Greek medicine. For, like this ancient Greek treatise, The Classic of the Mountains and Seas is based upon a philosophical and scientific premise of nature--the Chinese "Weltanschauung." The Chinese quest for a harmonious union between themselves and their biophysical and socioanthropological environment gave rise to such a "world concept" in which people and their way of reasoning were conceived of as being an integral part of the cosmos and intrinsically interjoined with the spiritual, physical, and moral "influences."

   Dr. Birrell's translation makes for an interesting read, with her scholarship enhancing our appreciation and understanding of this fascinating work. Her detailed Introduction is most helpful in acquainting the reader with the historical background of The Classic of the Mountains and Seas. Its shortcomings lie in its lack of numeric footnotes, a more specialized bibliography, a concordance with Romanization and Chinese equivalents, and her rendering of the place-names and denizens found in this zoomorphic setting.

   One can never be too careful when it comes to the translation of ancient Chinese words, for it is not uncommon to find that many of them have been vitiated by the bland assumption that they meant then what they mean in later dynastic periods; accordingly, such assumptions can be distorted or entirely false. One of the pleasures found in ancient languages lies in their implicitness, whereas, modern languages revel in their explicitness. Fortunately, the rich resources of English are capable of coping reasonably well with the varigated shades of the implicity found in the former. Dr. Birrell has attempted to avoid this pitfall, although I question some of her renderings as being too much of an effort to appeal to a more popular readership.

   For those readers wanting to further explore the many ethnographic features of this setting, the following works are recommended:

   (In Russian) E.M. Ianshina entitled, Katalog gor i morei (Shan Hai Tszin), or "A Catalogue of Mountains and Sea: The Classic of the Mountains and Seas."

   (In Chinese) Yuan Ke's Shan hai jing jiao zhu, or "A Critical Commentary on The Classic of the Mountains and Seas."

   (In French) Rémi Mathieu's two-volume Étude sur la Mythologie et L'ethnologie de la Chine Ancienne.

   (In English) Richard E. Strassberg's A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas.




2. Although I agree with the earlier reviewer's complaints about the absence of helpful apparatus -- to which I would add the difficulty of converting references using traditional Chinese section titles into parts of Birrell's translations -- I rate the book considerably higher. Descriptions and quotations tended to make it sound like Pliny's "Natural History," only dull. Birrell has made it read like an appendix to a Chinese Ovid, but more entertaining. Earlier attempts at translation that I have seen (mainly, it is true, of passages, often discontinuous) have been, at least from my point of view, almost unreadable. The self-imposed burden of trying to identify places and tribes can reduce even a few pages of what is reputed to be a fascinating, and sometimes whimsical, work to something more like an ordeal to read. To say nothing of the careful reproduction of Chinese names, which mean nothing to a reader who needs an English version!
   
   Birrell has chosen to treat the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" as a somewhat eccentric work of literature, which can be read for pleasure, like "Mandeville's Travels," or, to use other medieval European examples, Bestiaries and Lapidaries (accounts of strange beasts and the miraculous properties of precious stones). Although some sections are more consistently interesting than others, most pages hold something to keep the reader's attention. Since I can't judge the plausibility of Birrell's translations of Chinese names, I will say that I found her versions amusing. (I also noted the apparent ultimate source of the "Pokemon" convention that strange animals are named for the sounds they make, which happen to have meanings.)
   
   As a long-time reader of myths and legends, fantasy, and science fiction, I have fairly high standards for the entertainment level of a book about strange lands, peoples, and creatures. Taken as a whole, I found Birrell's translation entertaining and intriguing. Its major defects (lack of aides to the reader) could be, and I hope will be, repaired in some expanded edition in the future. For now, I am grateful to have it. The ethnographic, religious, geographical, and historical implications are fascinating -- and more properly the subject of a full commentary than a literary work for the Penguin Classics.



3. The reviews I read here for this book bamboozled me into buying it. I can only assume they are full time academics: no other explanation can be offered for their myopia.
   
   The book is admirably done, and the freeish rendering of Chinese mythological names is fine. The difficulty is that this is nothing but an extended catalogue, without stories or plot. It's a list. The descriptions are so unbelievably wierd that it's much fun to read for a page or two, but it's all so much the same, that after two paragraphs you've read it all. To call this a major source for Chinese mythology is simply untrue. Those interested in that subject should get a copy of The Journey to the West, or Chuang Tzu, or the stories of Pu Song Ling. To offer this to the reader as any sort of a narrative is an outright lie.
   
   The academic twits who have reviewed this so far do not seem to appreciate that just because a book's content is fictional doesn't make it fiction.

No comments about Mobil Travel Guide Beijing (Mobil Travel Guide).

No comments about Insight Guides Southern China & Hong Kong (Insight Guides).

5 comments about After Sorrow: An American Among the Vietnamese.

1. As a veteran of the war in Viet Nam, I can say that the thought of reading another book about the war was not appealing. Most of the books are so apologetic, jingoistic, or wrapped up in macho face-saving that they are of little use. This book was recommended by a friend who met Ms Borton in Viet Nam. He had not read her book, but was impressed by her enough to tell me about her. I found 'After Sorrow' in my Colleges library and after reading it, have since bought several copies to give to friends, mostly fellow veterans. It is an excellent book: personal and painfully revealing and very well written.I recommend it to anyone interested in that war, or the role of women in war, or anyone interested in a good book. My only complaint is the use of translated names without giving the Viet Namese original. The translated names are beautiful and lyric but I would like to know what 'Autumn' or 'River' or 'Second Harvest' are in their own language.



2. As a veteran of the war in Viet Nam, I can say that the thought of reading another book about the war was not appealing. Most of the books are so apologetic, jingoistic, or wrapped up in macho face-saving that they are of little use. This book was recommended by a friend who met Ms Borton in Han Noi, Viet Nam. He had not read her book, but was impressed by her enough to tell me about her. Unknown to my friend, I was in Quang Ngai City in 1969 when she was there (I in Air Cavalry, she with Quaker Services) and I knew of (and respected) the work of her organization from that time. I found 'After Sorrow' in my Colleges library and after reading it, have since bought several copies to give to friends, mostly fellow veterans. The reception has always been positive. It is an excellent book: personal and painfully revealing and very well written. It covers several extended visits by Ms Borton to various parts of the country over a span of some twenty years. I recommend it to anyone interested in the war, or the role of women in war, or really anyone interested in a good book. The beginning section, a visit to a village in the Mekong delta area, was particularly startling in the discussion of how effective the village women were as guerillas. My only complaint is the use of translated names without giving the Viet Namese original. The translated names are beautiful and lyric but I would like to know what 'Autumn' or 'River' or 'Second Harvest' are in their own language.



3. Lady Borton holds some strong opinions as I have noted on a recent trip to Viet Nam. In this wonderful book however she holds them in check and expresses everything in the words, experiences and thoughts of others who presumably were there. Reading this in country and in fact in the exact places cited in the book was a moving experience. Borton does not actually take a view on agent orange here although she has one. In fact emphasising that a woman's statements in the text are annecdotal and without statistical foundation is more than fair to other opinions. Nor does she promote communism but rather separates it from the nationalism which won the war for her friends who only begin to thrive when a market economy arrives. This is a wonderful story reflecting what other war participants think and feel in contrast to our own long held ideas.



4. From her experience living together with the common people, Lady Borton is able to reveal to us the main reason why the Americans failed to win the war in Vietnam. In fact, the war is already lost even before it began. Vietnamese is those special breed of people that's enormously proud of their country & should Americans have learnt about Vietnamese history, then, they would have to think twice before deciding to chip in efforts in assisting the French, & subsequently, to fight against communism. It so happened that after interviewing the common people, they were not fighting the Americans for communism but they simply wanted to win the right to enjoy their lives, to live as a free person with their own people. We also learnt of women's significant contribution towards the cause. Along the way, they lost their loved ones, & many became victims to chemical warfare conducted by the Americans. Surprisingly, many Vietnamese don't have ill-feelings against Americans because they always regarded the American Government differently from the Americans. The book also gives us a glimpse of their cultures (celebration of Tet & New Year), difference beween North & South Vietnam. To make the reading more interesting, there were pictures taken of the author with her new found friends ie. villagers, drawing of villages layouts, map of Vietnam, outline of Vietnam history, description of Vietnamese terms, relevant poems to start every & each chapters written by Vietnamese nationalists & poets. I don't find the book particularly captivating to read as it's quite long winded describing every little details about domestic chores. For those that yearn to feel the essence of villagers' life, perhaps, it's worth the while. Still, this doesn't deter the author's goal of reconciling between the States & Vietnam, & thus, the title of the book, After Sorrow.



5. this is one of the most biased, misleading books I have ever read. it reports all of the bad things that the south and the americans did, but totally ignores the atrocities committed by the north, like the 10,000 civilians killed in Hue during the 1968 VC offensive, including many who were buried alive. if the author is truly a pacifist, why are these not mentioned?

   beyond that, it tends to be repetitive and self-congradulatory.

5 comments about News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir (Marlboro Travel).

1. I haven't bought this edition yet. I read this while in Nepal and India and loved it. It is one of the finest pieces of travel writing I know of. I rank it with Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet", Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Thesiger's "Arabian Sands" and Stark's "Valleys of the Assassins." No new-age, PC navel-gazing here: just an honest and humorously-told narrative of an adventurous overland crossing of central Asia in a turbulent time. If you are interested in central Asia, I think this book is a must.



2. This is probably the best travel narrative ever written about China (although Owen Lattimore's 'The Desert Road to Turkestan' is a close second) and has influenced a great deal of subsequent writing about the region--not in content, but in style. Fleming presents himself as a bumbling amateur traveller, a mild eccentric, and someone who has only the vaguest idea what's going on. Later writers, attracted no doubt by the fact that this book has stayed in print for nearly 70 years, have taken this as justification to write narratives which revel in their own ignorance. But Fleming's amateurishness is merely a pose, and the book is full of humorous detail on life in China at that time, backed by sound journalism and knowledge of the political situation. It's also full of perceptive observations on the people he meets and their behaviour, guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of the modern traveller when coming across their latter day counterparts, both Chinese and expatriate foreigner.



3. Peter Fleming's "News from Tartary" is a classic travel book about trekking through the wilds of Asia. Unfortunately, it has been badly served by this edition; it's overpriced and lacking in quality. It doesn't have the 26 illustrations of the original; it doesn't even have the absolutely necessary map. Reading it is like watching a great movie without sound or captions. Fleming (Ian Fleming's brother, as it happens)would have had a well-turned phrase of damnation had he seen how this edition emasculates the original. I urge you to read the book, but not this way. Go online and buy a used copy of the hardback for not much more (over 50 copies were listed when I checked abebooks.com)and enjoy Fleming's travel saga as it deserves to be enjoyed. I feel cheated; readers should be informed when a reprint edition is, like this one, incomplete. My one star rating is not for the writing--its for this shoddy presentation of a great travel book.



4. "News from Tartary" is number 64 on National Geographic's list of 100 all-time best adventure books -- and it deserves the ranking. The author, Peter Fleming, brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, would deny that the book is about an "adventure" and claim that he and companion Ella K. Maillard merely took a long walk through Chinese Turkestan and, oh yes, crossed the Himalayas. Maillard wrote her own book about the trek, "Forbidden Journey," and it's also worth reading.
   
   "News from Tartary" is the story of a seven-month, 3,500 mile journey in 1935 from Peking to Kashmir, beginning by train and continuing by bus, foot, camel, and horse. Fleming is the British amateur par excellence. His equipment consisted of "a rook rifle, six bottles of brandy, and Macaulay's "History of England." He claims no qualifications or expertise to speak of, no purpose in traveling other than his own entertainment, and he gained little in the way of earthshaking wisdom that he shares with us. (If you read Maillard's book, you will find that his modest and self-mocking attitude may not be too far from the truth -- although Fleming is certainly an outstanding writer and journalist.)
   
   This is a cracking good story, more informative than it may seem, and charmingly told. Of an acquaintance, Fleming says that he "had seen me act more than once at Oxford, but he was of a forgiving disposition and prepared to let bygones be bygones." And, the author to the contrary, it was an adventure. Fleming and Maillard traversed some of the most unforgiving terrain in the world at a time in which banditry and political strife were rife. Fleming describes vividly the Chinese, Tungans, Turkis, and Tibetans they meet, the impossibly remote oasis towns at the foot of the Himalayas, and the passage across 15,000 feet mountain passes into British India. One of the more interesting elements of the book is the intrusion of modern politics into this narrative of exotic lands and unchanging people. The pair encounter civil war, Russian soldiers and airplanes in Kashgar, and "Great Game" intrique.
   
   I recommend you read this book with a good map at your side - or better yet buy a used copy of the original hardback edition which has a map and some good photos.
   
   Smallchief



5. Peter Fleming (1907-71) was Ian Fleming's (James Bond) older brother. Peter first rose to popularity in his 20's, during the early 30's, with 3 major travel/adventure books about trips through Brazil (33'), China (34') and Central Asia (36'). 'News from Tartary' (1936) is the last of the three and describes a 6 month 3500 mile trip from Peking (Beijing) due west across Chinas western provinces and south to India ("Tartary" is a Western term roughly meaning Central Asia). At the time China's most western province of Sinkiang (sometimes known as "Chinese Turkestan") was embroiled in a complex struggle of colonial and civil wars with Russia, China, etc.. and was a black hole of news. Sort of like Chechnya today, it held a certain dangerous fascination for intrepid western adventurers. Fleming traveled with Swiss writer Ella Maillart (1903-97) who was herself an accomplished adventurer, although not so well known in the English speaking world, she also wrote her own book about this trip and the two can be read for profitable comparison. There are many re-prints of News in circulation but the original edition is best as it contains dozens of fascinating black and white photos, thick rough-cut paper and a color tri-fold map of the route.
   
   'News from Tartary' is today considered a classic of travel literature ranked #64 on National Geographic's "100 Best Adventure Books". It is an early example of "British understatement", the bumbling amateur English gentleman who travels for no reason other than traveling, as would be copied in the post war years, with authors such as Eric Newby. Fleming graduated from Oxford with an advanced degree in English literature and while he believed in adventure, he wondered how - in a modern world of motor vehicles, trains and planes - real adventure could be written of anymore. Just as Cervantes in 'Don Quixote' believed in the spirit of chivalry, but knew its time had passed, he was able to write about it through a bumbling knight who could be laughed at. Likewise Fleming sought to disarm his readers with word play and self-deprecation, thus strengthening the more serious parts of the book and lending the author more credibility - Fleming succeed, in the readers eyes, not because of physical prowess and skills, but despite them. By being an approachable everyman, he is more able to vividly convey to his readers - who probably have never been to remote central Asia and never will - how it feels to travel through the Gobi desert on camels, arriving in oasis, going through sandstorms and traveling through the Himalayas.