Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

I am a big fan of Tahir Shah, and I mean with all respect, that this book reads as an early work. It had the same excellent content, unusual interactions with interesting people, and quirky expansions of reality (yeah, some stretching of reason and massaging of belief is occasionally required), but it lacked the flow and polish of Tahir Shah's more recent works.

For me, from the very beginning, this book seemed more like a story shoe-horned into an overarching concept, rather than a realistic concept with a story unfolding under it. The whole Gondwanaland link seemed too tenuous to me, and didn't add to the book.

Having pointed out the negatives, this is still a great read. Shah attracts off-beat people, and participate in their weirdness, and survive to write about it.

Travels in this book are supposed to further the authors own research in to Gondwanaland - and touch on India and Pakistan (fairly extensively). Then Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia on the West Coast of Africa, Congo DR in Central Africa, and Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya on the East Coast of Africa. In South America, he spends time in Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina. No mention of Australia and Antarctica - which were pretty important parts of Gondwanaland, even if New Zealand wasn't a big part.

Still - can't go wrong with this author. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

I love most of Tahir Shah's work but I found this one a bit jarring. It was like the literary equivalent of someone doing jackrabbit starts and stops in traffic. Each story felt like it ended too early and I didn't get to spend enough time in them before moving on to another.

Of course I might have been missing something...