Forbidden Journey
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Ella Maillart and the English journalist Peter Fleming undertake an astounding trek through some of the least known parts of the globe: From the Koko Nor to Central Asia, via the Tsaidam plateau, the Takla Makan desert, the Tarim basin, and from Kashgar across the Karakoram into Hunza. When they leave Peking, Japan is trying to crush a China devastated by civil war. With Peter Fleming, she maps out an unauthorized itinerary that no westerner seems to have followed since. The book is an account of seven risky months spent in solitary, windswept places where great civilisations once rubbed shoulders, visible to those who know how to decipher bleached bones and ancient ruins. Never again will the western provinces of China be seen in that way. The book was published in 1937 and has since been frequently reprinted, re-read and admired for the courage and talent of its author, for the accuracy of her observations and for her narrative gift.
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For those who aren't aware, [b:Forbidden Journey 20569925 Forbidden Journey Ella Maillart https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439688906l/20569925.SY75.jpg 666936], by Ella Maillart and [b:News From Tartary 16078494 News From Tartary A Journey from Peking to Kashmir Peter Fleming https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349868922l/16078494.SX50.jpg 543853] by Peter Fleming both describe the same journey, at the same time, taken together. They were somewhat reluctant companions, who both expressed their misgivings about undertaking the journey together. ”The jokes were flying. Somebody observed that Peter's last book was called One's Company, and the English edition of my last book, was Turkestan Solo. Now here we were, contrary to all our principles, going off together!”In both Forbidden Journey and News From the Tartary the authors distance themselves from the greatness of their work. Fleming goes so far in his Foreword to say “Anyone familiar, even vicariously, with the regions which he traversed will recognise the inadequacy of my descriptions of them... we were no specialists. The world's stock of knowledge – geographical, ethnological, meteorological, what you will – gained nothing from our journey. Nor did we mean that it should. Much as we should have liked to justify our existence by bringing back material which would have set the hive of learned men buzzing... we were not qualified to do so. We measured no skulls, we took no readings; we would not have known how. We travelled for two reasons only... We wanted to find out what was happening in Sinkiang... the second... was because we believed, in the light of previous experience, that we should enjoy it. It turned out we were right. We enjoyed it very much.”Both these books were written in a fairy humble, self-deprecating way, something I hadn't expected from Fleming in particular. I had found his [b:One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 4757144 One's Company A Journey to China in 1933 Peter Fleming https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333995036l/4757144.SY75.jpg 1785653] written quite pretentiously, and I hadn't enjoyed it much at all. News from the Tartary however is not written this way at all.Both books come across as accurately written, where one omits detail the other picks detail up, but they don't contradict each other. It may be that one author takes more from one encounter, or one location than the other, or one author is more involved in the conversation with a certain person, and therefore finds more to describe. At times an even that might take a chapter to explain in one book is bypassed with a sentence in the other book. I don't think anything would be lost from reading only one or other of these books, but I enjoyed the novelty of reading them together .It is fair to say that the journey was not unique – it was not the first time this route had been followed, but it was the first time for a number of years, and it would be a number more before it was repeated. To say that the journey of Maillart and Fleming was an inspiration for dozens of other intrepid travellers is no exaggeration.Great books. I have opted to review them together... mainly due to the fact I read them together and can't really separate them.
