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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
News from Tartary, 12 Sep 2002
Peter Fleming, brother of Ian, undertakes an audacious expedition in 1935 across an area of the world deep in revolutionary termoil.
His only companion "Kini" (Ella Maillart), shares in the journey which is an example of the eccentric travellers of the day. They wanted to do it because everyone said it was impossible to travel from China to India.
Written in an easy and readable style it manages to be more than a copy of his diary and you can share in some of the trials and tribulations they experience.
They use the cover of "The Times Special Correspondant" to pay for the expedition and travel "light" to ease the pressures of gaining pack animals.
From the start of the book on a train on the Hankow-Peking railway to the final canter on horseback to pick up the car at Banipur the length of the journey is easily conveyed.
Fleming illustrates the problems he has crossing provincial boundaries within China; the frustrations from local Warlords intervention; the bribes they have to pay; the staff they have to hire to protect themselves; the friends they have to abandon for their own safety; the pack animals they buy, use and watch suffer at certain points on the journey.
In his description of Sinkiang he delivers a picture of a confused state where the biggest bully in the area holds all the cards. An area where the U.S.S.R. and China fight for political influence.
In all this chaos walled cities and large caravans are required to maintain the safety of people and goods from bandits and rampaging warlords.
The fact that these two people succeed is as much down to their patience as their perseverence, because of the frustrations and hardships they suffer.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Forgotten Classic?, 3 Sep 2003
This book ranks with Byron's 'The Road to Oxiana', Burnaby's 'A Ride to Khiva', Cherry-Garrard's 'Worst Journey..', and anything by Raban, Theroux and the current new pretenders as a classic of travel writing. The plot is simple. Fleming and Ella Maillart travel from Peking via Sian into Sinkiang (i.e. Tartary - the year is 1935) and thence through the Himalayas to India. The adventures are to do with inter-war politics and travel-on-a-budget. The physical beauty of the countryside, its harshness, the enduringly difficult nature of the terrain and the people are sparingly but vividly drawn out. The tone is anti-sentimental, laconic, deliberately flat. Fleming comes across as a quintissential English Hero (which is exactly what he was before WW2 bought travel to millions and redefined heroism). The book runs on two levels. There is the straight travel narrative, written sparingly and with a good feel for the rhythms, both psychological and physical, of such a journey. Then there is the acerbic, slightly cynical, amused, and detached commentary on the action and the actors - the author being harder on himself than any of the other characters that we meet along the way. If there is a flaw in this great book it is that in the end it is not quite what it says on the side of the tin. This book is NOT really News from Tartary - the news as the author well knows is really an excuse for making the trip rather than the reason for it - but it is also not quite a travel narrative pure and simple. The author's own detached attitude ends up making the reader similary detatched, uninvolved in the trip itself, and more interested in the author than the road. But I urge you to go read this book.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A Dryly Hilarious Restless Young Man, 25 Feb 1999
By A Customer
What the other reviewer meant by saying that it was definitely not a timeless classic is bewildering, for it is a timeless classic, one I make time to reread regularly. I love Robert Byron too, but Fleming is so immediate, full of perfect crystalline writing, crisp comedy, and the most wonderful sensibility. Intrepidity, intelligence, and wit decorate a journey through heartless landscapes.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
simply the best, 27 Sep 2006
i am surprised there is even a question of this being a classic. it remains, still, my favourite travel book of all time. and i very much doubt that will ever change
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A travel book of its time which is still relevent today, 5 Jan 1999
By A Customer
Definitely not a timeless classic. 1935 was a time of huge change in Europe and in China, both politically and socially. Fleming decribes both, some interntionally, some accidentially, but with great style and feeling. You can read it for the journey, for the historical background, or as a piece of social commentary. Hugely enjoyable.
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