A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

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Thesiger invited them for a meal and to spend the night in his company. They were rather overawed and wondered what Thesiger thought of them, being so callow and inexperienced. They found out when they unrolled their mattress pads: Thesiger, who probably just hollowed-out a depression in the gravel to sleep, observed contemptuously, “God, you must be a couple of pansies”. The book comes with a sketchy map, hand-drawn by the author, on which the reader can follow a dotted line marking Newby's route. The map, indeed the entire trek, brings to mind Frodo's quest in Lord of the Rings. Although no orcs or dwarves come bounding out of any of the many caves Newby and Carless pass, their adventure is odd enough, and divorced enough from how we picture the world of 1956, that we would hardly have been surprised. Newby even happens upon a faded inscription carved into stone in an unknown tongue -- strangely reminiscent of Tolkien's elvish runes. The book definitely has its humorous moments. He quotes from his Bashgali(Kafir) phrasebook, which turned out to be of questionable usefulness. Critics such as the travel writer Alexander Frater have noted that while the book is held in extremely high esteem, [b] and is enjoyably comic, [30] [31] it is not nearly as well-written as his later autobiographical book, Love and War in the Apennines (1971), a judgement in which Newby concurred. [29] [32] [33] [34] a b Herbert, Kari; Gimlette, John; etal. (16 September 2011). "My favourite travel book, by the world's greatest travel writers". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 April 2013.

He intertwines his cast of characters, complex landscapes, diverse cultural customs, and histories like an Oscar winning Director. It isn't what story he is telling, but how he tells it; smooth, seamless, and adventurous. Meeting Carless, they drive across Turkey to Persia (present day Iran). They brake to an emergency stop on the road, just short of a dying nomad, and with difficulty convince the police they did not cause the death.

a b c Frater, Alexander (29 October 2006). "Eric Newby | 'I remember the hum of excitement he created' ". The Guardian . Retrieved 20 February 2018. Bingham, James; Brooksbank, Quentin; Wynne, Mark (2012). "A Short Winter in the Hindu Kush" (PDF). British Mountaineering Council . Retrieved 23 April 2013. a b Chwascinski, Boleslaw (1966). "The Exploration of the Hindu Kush" (PDF). Alpine Journal: 199–214. Through all the shenanigans and crises that ensue, we learn a little about the cultures and geography encountered and very little about the flora and fauna. Newby has nice comic timing for his narrative of events. It did feel like a wonder of heroic foolishness for them to get as far as they got, within 300 feet of the top of the 18,000 foot Mir Shamir. His critical asides can sometimes verge on caricature or stereotype in a way that seem a bit politically incorrect by today’s standards. For example, when he imputes menace or laziness or slovenliness in perception of their treatment or actions by the local people encountered on the journey. But I can see the point of wariness over menace in many cases, and the warmth of his heart in general toward people caught in poverty comes through. Also, he is often the ultimate butt of his humor as the one responsible for the insane quest in the first place and mistakes in first impressions. From 1973 until 1977, Carless headed the FCO's Latin-American department before his ministerial appointment as chargé d'affaires in Buenos Aires, where he monitored the disputed sovereignty of islands in the Beagle Channel, and the Falklands. He was appointed CMG in 1976. Following a secondment to Northern Engineering Industries, Carless served until his retirement, in 1985, as ambassador in Caracas.

I read A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush through its inclusion in the 2022 Year of Reading blind subscription from the English language bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France. I still think the last few sentences of “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” the funniest ending to any book I have read' Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Times Anon (2002). "Hugh Michael Carless, CMG" (PDF). British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, Churchill College, Cambridge. p.9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 August 2011 . Retrieved 4 April 2013. Indeed, he was twice taken prisoner, and told the story of his recapture - "a very disagreeable experience" - in what many regard as his finest book, Love and War in the Apennines (1971), a superb reconstruction of how at the height of the guerrilla warfare against the Germans in Italy, he met Wanda, the girl he returned to find when the war was over and whom he subsequently married. Although A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958) is the comic masterpiece Newby will be remembered by, Love and War revealed another side to what on the surface was an uncomplicated nature, a compelling tenderness and compassion. There are passages of great depth, quite beyond the range of ordinary travel writing. After a good few years in the printing industry I had had enough. I had been worn down by the daily grind. One day it was actually all too much, and I thought enough was enough! I rang up a mate and his phone went to message bank I blurted something stupid like let’s climb a mountain in the middle of nowhere or or or or! ……..any ideas?Newby and Carless climb 2,000 feet out of the valley to reach Arayu village. At Warna they rest by a waterfall with mulberry trees. They walk on, Newby dreaming of cool drinks and hot baths. They struggle on over a high cold pass. The last village of Nuristan, Achagaur, is peopled by Rajputs who claim to come from Arabia. They reach the top of the Arayu pass [27] and cheerfully descend on the far side. They meet the explorer and author of Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger, who is disgusted by their air-beds and calls them "a couple of pansies". [28] [29] Reception [ edit ] There was some divergence of opinion about how that worked out. Even Evelyn Waugh, who was sufficiently impressed by young Newby's writings to offer to contribute the preface to A Short Walk without a fee, confessed himself flummoxed by the contrasts in Newby's life. However, the two sides were probably less opposed than they may have appeared. Newby had a wife and a son and daughter to support, and full-time travel writing, let alone the expense of gathering the material, had severe limitations. One of the greatest travel classics from one of Britain's best-loved travel writers, this edition includes new photographs, an epilogue from Newby's travelling companion, Hugh Carless, and a prologue from one of Newby's greatest proponents, Evelyn Waugh. If the ironic and understated title alone didn’t allude to Newby’s comical approach (a “short” walk), then certainly chapter titles like “Birth of a Salesman” and “Death of a Salesman” would. The book has an “idiot abroad” feel, a travelogue of two bumbling foreigners who somehow get into awkward and improbable situations like getting hit on by a mechanic, dropping a pristine Rolex watch into a cauldron of boiling food, and, you know, attempting to climb a 6,000-meter mountain peak in the Hindu Kush. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2010-03-01 17:23:28 Boxid IA108921 Call number 3743049 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II Donor

Tonkin, Boyd (5 November 2010). "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, By Eric Newby". The Independent. Archived from the original on 13 June 2015 . Retrieved 20 February 2018.George, Don (19 May 1999). "The top 10 travel books of the century". Salon.com . Retrieved 20 February 2018.

After three years at the FCO in London, then as head of chancery at Budapest, there followed a sabbatical year in the department of politics at Glasgow University. In 1967-70, Carless was posted as consul general to Luanda, Angola. In 1970-73, while serving as press counsellor in Bonn, he improved the German he had learned at Sherborne and accompanied the prime minister, Edward Heath, on a helicopter tour of Bavaria's baroque churches.Eric Newby must have been aware of the curtain being drawn on mountain adventures in written form, so he structured his book in very different way. Instead of presenting himself and his partner Hugh Carless as mountain conquering heroes, he honestly depicts themselves for what they really were - two self-indulgent clueless men who impose themselves on locals in a poor nation. They are bullying their way to be dragged up steep mountain valleys close to the high point of their fancy - a mountain top they have not a slight chance of reaching. The account of their adventures written in this ironic self-deprecating way is like a breath of fresh air in the oxygen and imagination deprived atmosphere of mountain literature. From this launch point comes a perfect example of Newby’s deft skills in capturing characters with a flurry of impressions and metaphors. Her is his first sight of a pushy female buyer from New York City in the process of disrupting company operations with her histrionics and scehemes: