Chasing The Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage Through India
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Product Description
Product Description
The fascinating and revealing story of Frater's journey through India in pursuit of the astonishing Indian summer monsoon.
Book Description
On 20th May the Indian summer monsoon will begin to envelop the country in two great wet arms, one coming from the east, the other from the west. They are united over central India around 10th July, a date that can be calculated within seven or eight days. Alexander Frater aims to follow the monsoon, staying sometimes behind it, sometimes in front of it, and everywhere watching the impact of this extraordinary phenomenon. During the anxious period of waiting, the weather forecaster is king, consulted by pie-crested cockatoos, and a joyful period ensues: there is a period of promiscuity, and scandals proliferate. Frater's journey takes him to Bangkok and the cowboy town on the Thai-Malaysian border to Rangoon and Akyab in Burma (where the front funnels up between the mountains and the sea). His fascinating narrative reveals the exotic, often startling, discoveries of an ambitious and irresistibly romantic adventurer.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The fact that this book has been reprinted since 1987 shows its quality. Observer Travel Editor at the time of the book's publising, Alexander Frater is an enthusiast of people and loves talking to anyone who crosses his path. He's clever and has a wide, accurate vocabulary - yet seems not to know what a snob is. He meets everyone he can, some forcefully, some auspiciously: From the revered metereolgist of India who announces whether the monsoon's start will let people live or die, to a peasant who offers him a glass of cow's piss to revive him from a road accident in which he's almost died. And there's far better bits than that. He's also a dodgy geezer, in his own way. Brilliant.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A great read; transports you straight into the hurly burly of india; loads of fascinating characters .
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a delightful book! Alexander Frater watches the Monsoon arrive in Kerala, then chases it till they both reach a spot in the north which gets a higher annual rainfall than any other place on earth. But the joy is in the telling - zany adventures, wonderful sidetracks to an extraordinary childhood in the New Hebrides, and lovingly humorous observations of daily life in India piled one upon another. Beautifully written.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fine writing
Another great read from Mr Frater. I first read this after reading his excellent Beyond The Blue Horizon. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mark Hill
The Wonder that is India...
One of the true joys of reading is finding a book that involves a person's "offbeat" interests, and how, if s/he does not just dream, but pursues them, and then can render that... Read more
Published 17 months ago by John P. Jones III
hot and wet - the condition of a nation
This book was recommended to me by a well travelled colleague after we had a discussion about my recent trip to visit family in Kolkata, during the hot, wet months at the end of... Read more
Published 20 months ago by shumit
An excellent read
Beautifully written observation of an exciting trip; the author's biographical notes are also really interesting. Definitely a great Book Club choice.
Published on 1 May 2010 by Catriona M. Harrison
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