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The Desert Road to Turkestan
In inner Mongolia in 1927, when travel by rail had all but eclipsed the traditional camel caravan, Owen Lattimore embarked on the journey that would establish him as a legendary adventurer and leader among Asian scholars. THE DESERT ROAD TO TURKESTAN is Lattimore's elegant and spirited
account of his harrowing expedition across the famous "Winding Road."
Setting off to rejoin his wife for their honeymoon in Chinese Turkestan, Lattimore was forced to contend with marauding troops, a lack of maps, scheming travel companions, and blinding blizzard. Luckily he had with him not only his father's retainer, Moses, but a team of camel pullers and Chinese
traders he had assembled to teach him the ropes about their mysterious and now extinct way of life.
Lattimore's gifts as a linguist and his remarkable powers of observation lend his chronicle an immediacy and force that has lost now of its impact in the decades since its original publication.
account of his harrowing expedition across the famous "Winding Road."
Setting off to rejoin his wife for their honeymoon in Chinese Turkestan, Lattimore was forced to contend with marauding troops, a lack of maps, scheming travel companions, and blinding blizzard. Luckily he had with him not only his father's retainer, Moses, but a team of camel pullers and Chinese
traders he had assembled to teach him the ropes about their mysterious and now extinct way of life.
Lattimore's gifts as a linguist and his remarkable powers of observation lend his chronicle an immediacy and force that has lost now of its impact in the decades since its original publication.
384 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 1995
170 people want to read
About the author
Owen Lattimore
52 books18 followersOwen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. From 1963 to 1970, Lattimore was the first Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds in England, where he taught Chinese History, richly flavoured with personal reminiscences.
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January 3, 2020A classic adventure story from a part of the world I was totally fascinated by as a kid, with mysterious merchants, forbidding landscapes, rituals, deceits, peculiar foods, and sketchy encounters with various Khal Drogo-type warlords. And, soberingly, it's a reminder that journeys like Lattimore's aren't even possible anymore. But if you're anything like me -- who, as a child, wanted nothing more than to follow in the footsteps of Indiana Jones -- you'll find something to love.
May 16, 2017
Time, more than space, is the author of distance.
Remember that passage from Stephen King's "On Writing" about how writing is telepathy, and as proof he pointed out how we can understand writers from hundreds, even thousands of years before--Herodotus, he said, is intelligible, with a few footnotes. I thought about that quote wile reading Lattimore's travel book. Because I've read Herodotus and, even without the footnotes, the world he described felt more familiar than the one Lattimore did.
And its not because Herodotus was writing about the Mediterranean basin and Lattimore about Mongolia. There's a way in which Lattimore's book feels more distant--not in space, but in time.
The book is a pretty tough read at the outset, as Lattimore tries to compress Chinese and Mongolian history, politics, and geography into a chapter or so. There is a lot (lot, lot, lot . . .) of unfamiliar language. And it is not at all clear how all of these ideas relate. Even after he gets on his camel and starts traveling, the book is still a bit difficult to follow. Part of the reason is that the pictures he includes, while interesting, might not connect to the text for tens of pages; another part, a bigger part, is that there are no maps whatsoever, and it is impossible to follow along on contemporary maps given the idiosyncratic transliteration he (admittedly) uses and changes in name since the book was written, some 90 years ago.
There's another reason, too, the book feels distant in time: for all that it was written in the mid-192os, ti has the feel of a 19th century travel book. There's the author's audacity--he sets out on a trip through Mongolia and its environs in the midst of a Chinese civil war, even ending up detained for some time, after essentially slipping out one night (after his camels were confiscated). He makes the point--echoed by Chrisopher Beckwith, many years later--that this overland route was tremendously depopulated with the rise of modern shipping, leaving this area even more remote--unconnected--than it had been centuries before. There's bravery in what he did, even if it was undoubtedly tinged with colonial arrogance.
And that's another part of the nineteenth-century feel of the book: the condescension. Yes, Lattimore is helpful to the caravan with whom he travels, and can sometimes offer an ironic wink at his own tendency to rhapsodize. But he also sees everyone whom he meets within the confines of their culture, whereas he is free from any such binding. And he, 25 at the time, is master of all knowledge, seeing how obviously the Mongolians do not raise their horses appropriately or are held in check by some superstition. He explains away their medical treatments as so much hocus-pocus surrounding basic physiology that he (alone) can understand.
And yet, despite it all, there are moments where these faults drop away. He can be an acute observer, as when he comments on the culturally conditioned ways that people whisper, some of the whispers he hears sounding like saws with missing teeth. About half way through the book, as he settles into describing the life among camel herders of Mongolia. If the rest of the book could have been like this central hundred pages or so--
--well, then I'd feel like all the distance was collapsed. It would still be disorienting, in its way--that, after all, is the reason we read travel books, to destabilize the familiar, to go somewhere we could not otherwise (I'm never going to Mongolia, either the Mongolia of 1925, 2017, or some future time)--but the kind of disorientation I expected, even wanted.
As it is, there were moments I loved, and so many when I was lost.
Remember that passage from Stephen King's "On Writing" about how writing is telepathy, and as proof he pointed out how we can understand writers from hundreds, even thousands of years before--Herodotus, he said, is intelligible, with a few footnotes. I thought about that quote wile reading Lattimore's travel book. Because I've read Herodotus and, even without the footnotes, the world he described felt more familiar than the one Lattimore did.
And its not because Herodotus was writing about the Mediterranean basin and Lattimore about Mongolia. There's a way in which Lattimore's book feels more distant--not in space, but in time.
The book is a pretty tough read at the outset, as Lattimore tries to compress Chinese and Mongolian history, politics, and geography into a chapter or so. There is a lot (lot, lot, lot . . .) of unfamiliar language. And it is not at all clear how all of these ideas relate. Even after he gets on his camel and starts traveling, the book is still a bit difficult to follow. Part of the reason is that the pictures he includes, while interesting, might not connect to the text for tens of pages; another part, a bigger part, is that there are no maps whatsoever, and it is impossible to follow along on contemporary maps given the idiosyncratic transliteration he (admittedly) uses and changes in name since the book was written, some 90 years ago.
There's another reason, too, the book feels distant in time: for all that it was written in the mid-192os, ti has the feel of a 19th century travel book. There's the author's audacity--he sets out on a trip through Mongolia and its environs in the midst of a Chinese civil war, even ending up detained for some time, after essentially slipping out one night (after his camels were confiscated). He makes the point--echoed by Chrisopher Beckwith, many years later--that this overland route was tremendously depopulated with the rise of modern shipping, leaving this area even more remote--unconnected--than it had been centuries before. There's bravery in what he did, even if it was undoubtedly tinged with colonial arrogance.
And that's another part of the nineteenth-century feel of the book: the condescension. Yes, Lattimore is helpful to the caravan with whom he travels, and can sometimes offer an ironic wink at his own tendency to rhapsodize. But he also sees everyone whom he meets within the confines of their culture, whereas he is free from any such binding. And he, 25 at the time, is master of all knowledge, seeing how obviously the Mongolians do not raise their horses appropriately or are held in check by some superstition. He explains away their medical treatments as so much hocus-pocus surrounding basic physiology that he (alone) can understand.
And yet, despite it all, there are moments where these faults drop away. He can be an acute observer, as when he comments on the culturally conditioned ways that people whisper, some of the whispers he hears sounding like saws with missing teeth. About half way through the book, as he settles into describing the life among camel herders of Mongolia. If the rest of the book could have been like this central hundred pages or so--
--well, then I'd feel like all the distance was collapsed. It would still be disorienting, in its way--that, after all, is the reason we read travel books, to destabilize the familiar, to go somewhere we could not otherwise (I'm never going to Mongolia, either the Mongolia of 1925, 2017, or some future time)--but the kind of disorientation I expected, even wanted.
As it is, there were moments I loved, and so many when I was lost.
July 25, 2013
Lattimore traveled from Peking to western China-Turkestan by camel. He was one of the first foreigners to do such a trip. His descriptions of the land and people are great first hand accounts. He attempts to weave the history of the people he encounters into his account. He was partially unsure about the different mountains chains he came across and how they fit in with other explorers' routes. He had several funny altercations with his camel man, and he had a great sense of humor for the time period. He wasn't a stuffy Royal Geographic Society adventurer but a rugged, unentitled wanderer.
July 26, 2008
A well-written travelogue of one man's travels into Inner and Outer Mongolia. I could not help but like the author as he describes his travels with honesty, humility (compared with other "explorers" of his time particularly, who had servants to take care of them in their explorations), and sense of humor. Now I want to visit Mongolia.
October 4, 2011
4.5 stars - Wonderful travelogue. Lattimore is a clear travel writer who decided to travel "like a native" in Mongolia, rather than as a Great White Explorer (with servants and an entourage just to take care of him).
Fascinating journeys in Inner and Outer Mongolia. I loved this book, in part because I came to enjoy hearing the author's "voice" as he traveled.
Fascinating journeys in Inner and Outer Mongolia. I loved this book, in part because I came to enjoy hearing the author's "voice" as he traveled.
March 10, 2022
Great read, reminded me what a luxury and hardship traveling was.
Going to read more of Lattimore!
Going to read more of Lattimore!
October 12, 2012
Owen Lattimore - always. It's camel-caravan travel in the desert. For my own purposes I wanted to meet the inhabitants, Mongols, but didn't much - only the caravaneers. Great description and he lives down and dirty.
November 15, 2014
Amazing story of Owen Lattimore's 1927 journey via camel caravan to rejoin his wife for their honeymoon in Chinese Turkestan (modern Xinjiang), in the midst of the warlord era.
December 11, 2016
One of the great travel epics. Loved it! You can stay on the road with him in the follow-on "High Tartary".
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews