Rating: 
Summary: Insufferable author makes this all the more fun!
Review: This a travelogue of Dalrymple's voyage along the ancient Silk Road. It is absolutely fascinating. He goes places that are not going to be open to Americans for a very long time, and to all of the places that we hear about on the news every day: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. There is also a lot of stuff that I didn't know about the Palistinian existance in Israel.Dalrymple comes across as an insufferable prick, but a very ammusing insufferable prick. After all, who amongst us didn't think that we were the height of intellectual maturity as college students? The only really annoying bit his how he doesn't realize, though we do, how wonderful his first traveling companion is. Instead, he spends his time mooning over his ex-girlfriend, who the reader can tell is a complete flake. This isn't a great book, but it's a very interesting book, and very fun. It offers great background reading on the recent history of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Anyone who is interested in what's going on there now (and I hope that everyone is interested as there is a war on) should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Insufferable author makes this all the more fun!
Review: This a travelogue of Dalrymple's voyage along the ancient Silk Road. It is absolutely fascinating. He goes places that are not going to be open to Americans for a very long time, and to all of the places that we hear about on the news every day: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. There is also a lot of stuff that I didn't know about the Palistinian existance in Israel. Dalrymple comes across as an insufferable prick, but a very ammusing insufferable prick. After all, who amongst us didn't think that we were the height of intellectual maturity as college students? The only really annoying bit his how he doesn't realize, though we do, how wonderful his first traveling companion is. Instead, he spends his time mooning over his ex-girlfriend, who the reader can tell is a complete flake. This isn't a great book, but it's a very interesting book, and very fun. It offers great background reading on the recent history of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Anyone who is interested in what's going on there now (and I hope that everyone is interested as there is a war on) should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: 12,000 miles in the footsteps of Marco Polo
Review: William Dalrymple travelled 12,000 miles overland from Jerusalem to Xanadu in order to retrace the journey of Marco Polo, and I think the Venetian probably had the easier trip--- in 1271 Marco Polo didn't have to smuggle himself along the Silk Route by burrowing into the back of a coal truck. The author calls his journey a 'quest' rather than a 'vacation,' since it involved not only a goal, but also a great deal of hardship and suffering. However "In Xanadu" is an excellent book to take on vacation. It is a lucid and sometimes hilarious account of a very low-budget journey through Asia ($1100 financed the entire trip through Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and the breadth of China.) And best of all, no matter how badly your own vacation turns out, you can always pick this book up and find Dalrymple in a more miserable spot than you are. There is also beauty and moments of scholarly excitement when the author identifies some feature of the landscape with a passage from Marco Polo's journal. I particularly liked his description of a nocturnal train trip through Turkey. He sees dry flatlands transformed into lush pasturage and wonders at the source of water. Then the train comes upon a river, and Dalrymple unfolds his map: "Its Turkish name, the Firat Nehri, meant nothing to me. Only when I followed the thin blue line down through Syria and out towards Baghdad, did I see the river's more familiar name --- the Euphrates....Is there another river which carries with it so many associations?...The river which ran through the Garden of Eden, one of the five rivers of the Apocalypse! Following its course on the map, its banks are littered with the names of the ancient cities it once gave life to: Mari, Nippur, Uruk, Larsa, Erdu, Kish." The above paragraph is a rare flight of fancy for Dalrymple. His normal style is less flamboyant, laced with dry British humor where he tends to be the butt of his own jokes. Sometimes the reader is left to discover the humor of the situation through one of his dialogues. Here is Dalrymple in Kashgar, a Chinese city populated by the Muslim Uigurs. He is trying to explain through an interpreter, the lifestyle of the British 'Chairman' Elizabeth II to an old mullah: "Salindi [the interpreter] frowned. 'He wants to know how many sheep, donkeys and camels your chairman owns.' "'Tell him she owns no camels, but has very many horses and a great number of corgi dogs.' "The information was passed on. The old man nodded his head as he listened. "'Sir, this man is now asking about the dog which is called 'khor-qi'. He asks whether these 'khor-qi' are good to eat.' "'Tell the old man that they are delicious.'" "In Xanadu" is travel writing in the grandly eccentric British tradition: a horrid climate and high adventure, laced throughout with dry wit. Be sure to get a copy for your next vacation. I'm going to loan mine to a friend who thinks she wants to visit Iran and Afghanistan (last year she trekked through Outer Mongolia). Either "In Xanadu" will dissuade her from her planned adventure, or else she is as bonkers as Dalrymple.
Rating:
Summary: 12,000 miles in the footsteps of Marco Polo
Review: William Dalrymple travelled 12,000 miles overland from Jerusalem to Xanadu in order to retrace the journey of Marco Polo, and I think the Venetian probably had the easier trip--- in 1271 Marco Polo didn't have to smuggle himself along the Silk Route by burrowing into the back of a coal truck. The author calls his journey a 'quest' rather than a 'vacation,' since it involved not only a goal, but also a great deal of hardship and suffering. However "In Xanadu" is an excellent book to take on vacation. It is a lucid and sometimes hilarious account of a very low-budget journey through Asia ($1100 financed the entire trip through Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and the breadth of China.) And best of all, no matter how badly your own vacation turns out, you can always pick this book up and find Dalrymple in a more miserable spot than you are. There is also beauty and moments of scholarly excitement when the author identifies some feature of the landscape with a passage from Marco Polo's journal. I particularly liked his description of a nocturnal train trip through Turkey. He sees dry flatlands transformed into lush pasturage and wonders at the source of water. Then the train comes upon a river, and Dalrymple unfolds his map: "Its Turkish name, the Firat Nehri, meant nothing to me. Only when I followed the thin blue line down through Syria and out towards Baghdad, did I see the river's more familiar name --- the Euphrates....Is there another river which carries with it so many associations?...The river which ran through the Garden of Eden, one of the five rivers of the Apocalypse! Following its course on the map, its banks are littered with the names of the ancient cities it once gave life to: Mari, Nippur, Uruk, Larsa, Erdu, Kish." The above paragraph is a rare flight of fancy for Dalrymple. His normal style is less flamboyant, laced with dry British humor where he tends to be the butt of his own jokes. Sometimes the reader is left to discover the humor of the situation through one of his dialogues. Here is Dalrymple in Kashgar, a Chinese city populated by the Muslim Uigurs. He is trying to explain through an interpreter, the lifestyle of the British 'Chairman' Elizabeth II to an old mullah: "Salindi [the interpreter] frowned. 'He wants to know how many sheep, donkeys and camels your chairman owns.' "'Tell him she owns no camels, but has very many horses and a great number of corgi dogs.' "The information was passed on. The old man nodded his head as he listened. "'Sir, this man is now asking about the dog which is called 'khor-qi'. He asks whether these 'khor-qi' are good to eat.' "'Tell the old man that they are delicious.'" "In Xanadu" is travel writing in the grandly eccentric British tradition: a horrid climate and high adventure, laced throughout with dry wit. Be sure to get a copy for your next vacation. I'm going to loan mine to a friend who thinks she wants to visit Iran and Afghanistan (last year she trekked through Outer Mongolia). Either "In Xanadu" will dissuade her from her planned adventure, or else she is as bonkers as Dalrymple.
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