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Penguin Travel Library
First Russia, Then Tibet: Travels Through a Changing World
Over the course of several months during 1931 and 1932, Robert Byron journeyed to three countries teetering on the brink of change. In Russia, which was stricken by famine, Lenin had just died, Stalin's dictatorship was in its infancy and the Great Terror had yet to begin. Having taken the first commercial flight to India, which took an astounding seven days, Byron was thrown into the tumultuous last years of the British Raj. Gandhi was imprisoned, while rioting and clashes between Hindus and Muslims had become commonplace. Finally Byron entered Tibet, the forbidden country. Exploring “The Land of Snows”, he saw Tibet as it was when the then Dalai Lama was still ensconced in the Potala Palace, twenty years before China's invasion. First Russia, Then Tibet is an invaluable first-hand account of transformative moments in periods of change and upheaval.
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 4, 2011
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About the author
Robert Byron
39 books46 followersRobert Byron was an English travel writer, best known for his travelogue The Road to Oxiana. He was also a noted writer, art critic and historian.
Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath, Scotland, en route to Egypt.
Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. It is an account of Byron's ten-month journey to Persia and Afghanistan in 1933-34 in the company of Christopher Sykes. Byron had previously travelled to widely different places; Mount Athos, India, the Soviet Union, Tibet. However it was in Persia and Afghanistan that he found the subject round which he forged his style of modern travel writing, when he later came to write up his account in Peking, his temporary home.
Writer Paul Fussell wrote in his 1982 book Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." Travel writer Bruce Chatwin has described the book as "a sacred text, beyond criticism," and carried his copy "spineless and floodstained" on four journeys through central Asia.
However, in his day, Byron's travel books were outsold by those of writers Peter Fleming and Evelyn Waugh.
An appreciation of architecture is a strong element in Byron's writings and he was a forceful advocate for the preservation of historic buildings, and was a founder member of the Georgian Group. A philhellene, he was also amongst the pioneers in a reinterest in Byzantine History.
He attended the last Nuremberg Rally, in 1938, with Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford. Byron knew her through his friendship with her sister Nancy Mitford, but he was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. He died aged 35 in 1941 after his ship, the SS Jonathan Holt, was torpedoed by a u-boat in the North Atlantic.
Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath, Scotland, en route to Egypt.
Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. It is an account of Byron's ten-month journey to Persia and Afghanistan in 1933-34 in the company of Christopher Sykes. Byron had previously travelled to widely different places; Mount Athos, India, the Soviet Union, Tibet. However it was in Persia and Afghanistan that he found the subject round which he forged his style of modern travel writing, when he later came to write up his account in Peking, his temporary home.
Writer Paul Fussell wrote in his 1982 book Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." Travel writer Bruce Chatwin has described the book as "a sacred text, beyond criticism," and carried his copy "spineless and floodstained" on four journeys through central Asia.
However, in his day, Byron's travel books were outsold by those of writers Peter Fleming and Evelyn Waugh.
An appreciation of architecture is a strong element in Byron's writings and he was a forceful advocate for the preservation of historic buildings, and was a founder member of the Georgian Group. A philhellene, he was also amongst the pioneers in a reinterest in Byzantine History.
He attended the last Nuremberg Rally, in 1938, with Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford. Byron knew her through his friendship with her sister Nancy Mitford, but he was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. He died aged 35 in 1941 after his ship, the SS Jonathan Holt, was torpedoed by a u-boat in the North Atlantic.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 27, 2025
Robert Byron is most famous for his The Road to Oxiana, which is one of the great travel classics. But also worthy of note is his First Russia Then Tibet( Travels Through a Changing World) which was published in 1933. It deals with two trips that Byron took: one a visit to Russia in the 1920s in which he disputes the local propaganda, and then by air to India and from thence to Sikkim and Tibet.
On the latter trip, he does not quite make it to Lhasa to visit the Dalai Lama, but he does make it to Gyantse, where there is a British trading station. This is not to imply that it was an epic journey, as it does reach an altitude of over 15,000 feet; and the return trip takes place during a stormy early winter.
It is interesting to note that Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia and The Song Lines) loved this book and often traveled with a heavily battered copy of it.
On the latter trip, he does not quite make it to Lhasa to visit the Dalai Lama, but he does make it to Gyantse, where there is a British trading station. This is not to imply that it was an epic journey, as it does reach an altitude of over 15,000 feet; and the return trip takes place during a stormy early winter.
It is interesting to note that Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia and The Song Lines) loved this book and often traveled with a heavily battered copy of it.
February 7, 2017
Byron probably did as much as anyone to create the modern image of the 'travel writer'. It was he who lent Patrick Leigh Fermor a rucksack for the latter's famous journey from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A generation later, Bruce Chatwin described Byron's 'Road to Oxiania' as his 'sacred text'. He was erudite, dashing, and well-connected in the upper-class English way. His savoir faire was broad enough that he could seem equally at home in a monastery in Greece or Tibet, and remark casually that the first-class dining car in a Soviet train reminded him of the Ritz. Above all, he was a brilliant prose stylist.
First Russia, Then Tibet is a book that does exactly what it says on the cover. I had initially assumed that it was about a trip from Russia, through Central Asia, to Tibet. This is not the case. It is, rather, the chronicle of three separate trips in the mid 1930s — two to the USSR, and one to Tibet (then an independent state under the rule of the 13th Dalai Lama). Byron makes some excuse for combining all these into one book. Both Communist Russia and feudal stand in contrast to the Capitalist West. It's a pretty feeble connection, especially given that Byron is by no means a political writer. Instead, the book is best understood as two separate narratives, each composed of several vignettes. Indeed, the story of flight to India that begins the Tibetan portion is almost another short story in itself, covering two whole chapters. This was the earliest days of commercial air travel, and flying from London to Calcutta involved more or less lengthy stop overs in cities including but not limited to Paris, Basel, Genoa, Naples, Corfu, Corinth, Alexandria, Baghdad, and Karachi. In the last of these, Byron was greeted enthusiastically by the local gentlemen's club and put up for the night, only for it to be decided that he couldn't dine in the club dining room, as he didn't have a dinner jacket.
Until now, the only one of Byron's books I had read was The Station, about his time on Mount Athos. That struck me as the work of a brilliant but immature writer. 'First Russia, Then Tibet', is a much greater work. There is an empathetic quality in Byron's descriptions that was lacking in his earlier book. This is not to say that he seriously questions the privileges of his status (the passages about his Indian servants make fairly uncomfortable reading and are the only part of the book that actually seems dated).
One of the most delightful aspects of this book is what I like to call Byron sentences. The typical characteristic of a Byron sentence is that it should start out in grand, even florid, language before descending into absurdity at the very end. He had already perfected this art in The Station, as in this gem:
This art is continued in First Russia, Then Tibet . To pick one example from each section of the book:
And, after a stuffy colonial dinner party in Government House, Darjeeling:
These sentences contain the charm of the book in miniature. Byron is creating the genre of travel writing; at the same time, with his considerable wit, deconstructing its cliches.
First Russia, Then Tibet is a book that does exactly what it says on the cover. I had initially assumed that it was about a trip from Russia, through Central Asia, to Tibet. This is not the case. It is, rather, the chronicle of three separate trips in the mid 1930s — two to the USSR, and one to Tibet (then an independent state under the rule of the 13th Dalai Lama). Byron makes some excuse for combining all these into one book. Both Communist Russia and feudal stand in contrast to the Capitalist West. It's a pretty feeble connection, especially given that Byron is by no means a political writer. Instead, the book is best understood as two separate narratives, each composed of several vignettes. Indeed, the story of flight to India that begins the Tibetan portion is almost another short story in itself, covering two whole chapters. This was the earliest days of commercial air travel, and flying from London to Calcutta involved more or less lengthy stop overs in cities including but not limited to Paris, Basel, Genoa, Naples, Corfu, Corinth, Alexandria, Baghdad, and Karachi. In the last of these, Byron was greeted enthusiastically by the local gentlemen's club and put up for the night, only for it to be decided that he couldn't dine in the club dining room, as he didn't have a dinner jacket.
Until now, the only one of Byron's books I had read was The Station, about his time on Mount Athos. That struck me as the work of a brilliant but immature writer. 'First Russia, Then Tibet', is a much greater work. There is an empathetic quality in Byron's descriptions that was lacking in his earlier book. This is not to say that he seriously questions the privileges of his status (the passages about his Indian servants make fairly uncomfortable reading and are the only part of the book that actually seems dated).
One of the most delightful aspects of this book is what I like to call Byron sentences. The typical characteristic of a Byron sentence is that it should start out in grand, even florid, language before descending into absurdity at the very end. He had already perfected this art in The Station, as in this gem:
On the home journey we traveled from Constantinople; up the Black Sea by Rumanian boat to Constanza; from there to Bucharest; and on to Vienna, where an industrial exhibition, housed in three buildings each larger than the Albert Hall, consisted wholly of saucepans.
This art is continued in First Russia, Then Tibet . To pick one example from each section of the book:
The proletariat is becoming bourgeois — but how bourgeois I realized only on learning that the sole industrial undertaking of the Five-Year Plan whose output is so far up to schedules is the Leningrad spat factory.
And, after a stuffy colonial dinner party in Government House, Darjeeling:
A few minutes later and ADC strode into the room, stood to attention before the Governor, and, having waited for the latter to finish what he was saying, observed: ‘The house is on fire, Your Excellency’.
These sentences contain the charm of the book in miniature. Byron is creating the genre of travel writing; at the same time, with his considerable wit, deconstructing its cliches.
April 28, 2011
Review published in Oxford Today, Volume 23 Hilary 2010:
"As a fellow explorer – who has recently crossed Antarctica – and an Oxonian, I was asked to review Robert Byron's First Russia, then Tibet, re-published (along with his book about the monasteries of Mount Athos, The Station – Athos: Treasures and Men) for the fi rst time since 1933.
Byron felt, evidenced by his subtitle, Travels through a Changing World, that the onset of modernity was challenging the political and social fabric of the world and set out to visit the two most contradictory societies on earth. The poetry of the subtitle may be much more appealing but the utilitarian title is structurally and thematically perfect.
Half the book is devoted to Russia, "where the moral influence of the Industrial Revolution has found its grim apotheosis". Byron visits Moscow, Leningrad and a handful of cities that are of interest. But his real motivation is a desire to investigate the arcane Byzantine origins of Russian iconography.
The second half records a breathtaking journey on the first commercial flight to India that even Saint-Exupèry might envy: "I see it now as one of the great experiences of a life, a period of vivid, unclouded enjoyment... of unsuspected and unimagined beauties, of heat and desolation beyond credence, of a new pleasure in physical movement", and then a fascinating expedition into Tibet, rarely visited by a writer of Byron's quality. It is here that I found the greatest imaginative connection, as Byron laments the "monotonous, agonised records of those more adventurous explorers", but nevertheless braves the rigours of the Tibetan plateau, to illuminate the gorgeous landscape and its graceful people.
The balance of the two contradictory journeys, the order implying an ironic inversion of the Russian establishment's assertion of progress – first Russia, then Tibet – makes this a difficult book, two in one, but for the patient reader a rewarding volume. As Byron comments: "This book presents two excursions whose very diversity is symbolic of those formidable contradictions which make it a privilege and a puzzle to be alive in the twentieth century."
Among Byron's 'Brideshead' contemporaries Evelyn Waugh and Peter Fleming, who outsold him at the time, he has proved far more influential on later writers. Byron's subsequent Road to Oxiana was declared by Bruce Chatwin to be a "sacred text" and "beyond criticism", and in the witty Byron – a camp aesthete with an amateur brilliance in art history and a penchant for exotica – it is not hard to see why Chatwin became a devotee.
Many of the qualities admired in Oxiana are present in First Russia, then Tibet: the passages of intensely beautiful description or the deft ability to generalise epigrammatically about a culture; but it lacks the episodic, mosaic quality of Oxiana, which appears to be so carelessly put down but is, in fact, rigorously studied.
Byron writes that "the ideas of Russia are preached and act as a challenge to the West. The ideas of Tibet offer no challenge." The pugnacious Byron cannot help himself. While prescient and perceptive, his description of Bolshevism as a religion followed by a self-indulgent essay on early Russian painting is less rewarding – but in Tibet, when he just observes, the book demonstrates why, in this changed world, affecting writing of any age should be cherished."
"As a fellow explorer – who has recently crossed Antarctica – and an Oxonian, I was asked to review Robert Byron's First Russia, then Tibet, re-published (along with his book about the monasteries of Mount Athos, The Station – Athos: Treasures and Men) for the fi rst time since 1933.
Byron felt, evidenced by his subtitle, Travels through a Changing World, that the onset of modernity was challenging the political and social fabric of the world and set out to visit the two most contradictory societies on earth. The poetry of the subtitle may be much more appealing but the utilitarian title is structurally and thematically perfect.
Half the book is devoted to Russia, "where the moral influence of the Industrial Revolution has found its grim apotheosis". Byron visits Moscow, Leningrad and a handful of cities that are of interest. But his real motivation is a desire to investigate the arcane Byzantine origins of Russian iconography.
The second half records a breathtaking journey on the first commercial flight to India that even Saint-Exupèry might envy: "I see it now as one of the great experiences of a life, a period of vivid, unclouded enjoyment... of unsuspected and unimagined beauties, of heat and desolation beyond credence, of a new pleasure in physical movement", and then a fascinating expedition into Tibet, rarely visited by a writer of Byron's quality. It is here that I found the greatest imaginative connection, as Byron laments the "monotonous, agonised records of those more adventurous explorers", but nevertheless braves the rigours of the Tibetan plateau, to illuminate the gorgeous landscape and its graceful people.
The balance of the two contradictory journeys, the order implying an ironic inversion of the Russian establishment's assertion of progress – first Russia, then Tibet – makes this a difficult book, two in one, but for the patient reader a rewarding volume. As Byron comments: "This book presents two excursions whose very diversity is symbolic of those formidable contradictions which make it a privilege and a puzzle to be alive in the twentieth century."
Among Byron's 'Brideshead' contemporaries Evelyn Waugh and Peter Fleming, who outsold him at the time, he has proved far more influential on later writers. Byron's subsequent Road to Oxiana was declared by Bruce Chatwin to be a "sacred text" and "beyond criticism", and in the witty Byron – a camp aesthete with an amateur brilliance in art history and a penchant for exotica – it is not hard to see why Chatwin became a devotee.
Many of the qualities admired in Oxiana are present in First Russia, then Tibet: the passages of intensely beautiful description or the deft ability to generalise epigrammatically about a culture; but it lacks the episodic, mosaic quality of Oxiana, which appears to be so carelessly put down but is, in fact, rigorously studied.
Byron writes that "the ideas of Russia are preached and act as a challenge to the West. The ideas of Tibet offer no challenge." The pugnacious Byron cannot help himself. While prescient and perceptive, his description of Bolshevism as a religion followed by a self-indulgent essay on early Russian painting is less rewarding – but in Tibet, when he just observes, the book demonstrates why, in this changed world, affecting writing of any age should be cherished."
March 29, 2022
Byron's descriptions of art works, architecture, and landscapes are not only accurate, but show the casual observer a deeper truth. We are fortunate indeed to be able to find on the Internet photographs of the paintings and buildings he describes, and to follow his descriptions, which are lessons in architecture and art in themselves. Byron was an intrepid traveller: he would walk for hours in subzero temperatures and snowstorms; he would sleep in flea-infested rooms; he would eat whatever was on offer. He did not seek to change the people he met, or impose his culture on them--indeed, this book is a eulogy to ways of life he sees will disappear with the march of Western economics--but he also does not try to fit in, he remains himself at all times, aware of his own intelligence, and not afraid to criticize or protest.
September 2, 2018
Good book. Byron is a talented writer. this book is a combination of a travel narrative and art history review. He writes about his travels in the Soviet Union (Russia and the Ukraine) in the early 1930's. He also introduces Byzantine-influenced artworks that were painted in Russia, and are located in Russia. Great description of these works. He also describes well how these works to art were being handled in the Soviet Union where religion was being suppressed, but these Christian works of art were still valued as cultural heritage.
His description of travels and the environment of both India and Tibet are great too. You live it with him as he describes it. What's striking is the hardship he endured all throughout his travels particularly hardship created by extreme cold and snow.
I don't agree with his politics which come through loud and clear. the seeds of political correctness are evident here. Byron consistently denigrates his own Western culture and consistently lauds foreign culture. The truth, of course, is that both have good and bad elements. Still, this is a good book if you like Russian culture, travel narratives, Tibetan culture, and history.
His description of travels and the environment of both India and Tibet are great too. You live it with him as he describes it. What's striking is the hardship he endured all throughout his travels particularly hardship created by extreme cold and snow.
I don't agree with his politics which come through loud and clear. the seeds of political correctness are evident here. Byron consistently denigrates his own Western culture and consistently lauds foreign culture. The truth, of course, is that both have good and bad elements. Still, this is a good book if you like Russian culture, travel narratives, Tibetan culture, and history.
February 17, 2024
Robert Byron, un joven inglés de clase alta aprovecha sus contactos para escribir artículos de la India y el Tíbet a cambio de que la editorial costee la aventura, una que transcurre en los últimos años de la década de 1920.
Byron presenta un Tíbet medieval cuando aún la modernidad de la civilización no llegaba a esas alturas.
El relato es full detallado y transporta a sus penurias pero también momentos únicos e irrepetibles. A veces ciertos personajes que menciona que no resuenan hoy en día entorpecen la lectura pero sin duda es interesante para quienes se sienten atraídos por el Tíbet.
Byron presenta un Tíbet medieval cuando aún la modernidad de la civilización no llegaba a esas alturas.
El relato es full detallado y transporta a sus penurias pero también momentos únicos e irrepetibles. A veces ciertos personajes que menciona que no resuenan hoy en día entorpecen la lectura pero sin duda es interesante para quienes se sienten atraídos por el Tíbet.
November 4, 2020
I found the first half of the book - the Russia section - too much of a slog to read. So skipped over that portion and jumped into the Tibet section. Really enjoyed reading that section. Evocative, but of its time.
not-finished
February 5, 2024I got a few pages into this - still trudging thru the "what is Marxism" section, hadn't even got to the travel - and came across an anti-semitic statement such that I can never read Byron again. And I did love The Road to Oxiana.
August 13, 2018
The first, Moscow, half is the best. Byron writes beautifully, worth a read.
November 17, 2024
The book that's responsible for me realising that the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches are essentially the same thing.
July 30, 2025
Fun snapshot of a different time.
January 24, 2012
Such an interesting book by an excellent writer, who died young - drowned in a military ship off Scotland in 1941.
This text is really two books between one cover; two trips in 1933 - to Russia in January and to Tibet in October. The edition I read - from a Harvard Library is not the one pictured. MacMillan and Co, Edinburgh, 1933. So any page references may be different in other editions.
The Russian piece is most interesting for his almost prescient observations about the USSR use as the purges were starting, although he doesn't use that word. He also wrote about Russian religious art, but as there are almost no pictures it's hard for a non-specialist to follow.
His itinerary was Moscow, Leningrad, Veliki Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Sergievo, Ukraine.
Because of his interest in Orthodox Christianity his comments about political life start from his drawing some differences between W and E Christianity. By his description the Orthodox Church is focussed on the attainment of "heaven and earth by means of contemplation" whereas in the West the goal was to pursue a "satisfactory after-life."...."Thus the Russian has always conceived of progress as a mass-advance towards an immediate millennium rather than as a succession of steps take by gifted individuals towards objective truth....The individual, wedded to objective thought for its own selfish sake, was ignored as a permanent factor in the social scheme, for the obvious reason that the Russians have no conception of the individual in this sense....We aim at an increasing distribution of material benefits within a framework that preserves the prerogatives of the individual. But let us understand that Bolshevism, whether it proves economically feasible or not, derives directly and genuinely from the Russian view of the universe....But I wish to record a very definite impression on my part of the nervous insecurity and strain that prevails among all educated and semi-educated people in Russian, members of the Community Party included." pp 21-25
Tibet is completely different. First his account of getting there, by air, involved a journey of many steps that began on July 28 and ended in Calcutta around Aug 10. At the end of Sept. he set out for Darjeeling (Sikkim) and walked from there to Gyantse Tibet, where he and his companions spent a week in October, and then back. Impossibly high and steep mountains from Sikkim to Tibet, lots of snow etc etc. British cantonments along the way with officials from India going to Lhasa (beyond Gyantse) and back on a regular basis. Absolutely fascinating. I myself took a trip to Tibet in 2002 that included Gyantse, but we flew into Lhasa from Chengdu, China and travelled across Tibet in Landrovers and it was summer. Gyantse else changed in 70 years than most places in the world.
This text is really two books between one cover; two trips in 1933 - to Russia in January and to Tibet in October. The edition I read - from a Harvard Library is not the one pictured. MacMillan and Co, Edinburgh, 1933. So any page references may be different in other editions.
The Russian piece is most interesting for his almost prescient observations about the USSR use as the purges were starting, although he doesn't use that word. He also wrote about Russian religious art, but as there are almost no pictures it's hard for a non-specialist to follow.
His itinerary was Moscow, Leningrad, Veliki Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Sergievo, Ukraine.
Because of his interest in Orthodox Christianity his comments about political life start from his drawing some differences between W and E Christianity. By his description the Orthodox Church is focussed on the attainment of "heaven and earth by means of contemplation" whereas in the West the goal was to pursue a "satisfactory after-life."...."Thus the Russian has always conceived of progress as a mass-advance towards an immediate millennium rather than as a succession of steps take by gifted individuals towards objective truth....The individual, wedded to objective thought for its own selfish sake, was ignored as a permanent factor in the social scheme, for the obvious reason that the Russians have no conception of the individual in this sense....We aim at an increasing distribution of material benefits within a framework that preserves the prerogatives of the individual. But let us understand that Bolshevism, whether it proves economically feasible or not, derives directly and genuinely from the Russian view of the universe....But I wish to record a very definite impression on my part of the nervous insecurity and strain that prevails among all educated and semi-educated people in Russian, members of the Community Party included." pp 21-25
Tibet is completely different. First his account of getting there, by air, involved a journey of many steps that began on July 28 and ended in Calcutta around Aug 10. At the end of Sept. he set out for Darjeeling (Sikkim) and walked from there to Gyantse Tibet, where he and his companions spent a week in October, and then back. Impossibly high and steep mountains from Sikkim to Tibet, lots of snow etc etc. British cantonments along the way with officials from India going to Lhasa (beyond Gyantse) and back on a regular basis. Absolutely fascinating. I myself took a trip to Tibet in 2002 that included Gyantse, but we flew into Lhasa from Chengdu, China and travelled across Tibet in Landrovers and it was summer. Gyantse else changed in 70 years than most places in the world.
August 2, 2019
"Este relato debe centrarse ahora en esa etapa familiar para todos los lectores de libros de viajes sobre el Tíbet, en la que la desolación del país supera el resto de impresiones. Mientras uno queda deslumbrado por colores y formas de tal intensidad y resplandor, y tal escala, que parece como si nuestro planeta apagado y común se hubiera cambiado por la luna u otro cuerpo celeste, un miedo involuntario y recóndito acecha en las sombras del ser del forastero, como si lo amenazara la extinción gradual pero completa, con esa cesación del ser que el budismo enseña como fin del hombre y de su perfeccionamiento."
Resulta inevitable sentir cierta antipatía por Robert Byron, típico snob inglés de los años 20 que nos recuerda a alguno de los decadentes personajes de las novelas de Evelyn Waugh o Aldous Huxley. No solo el relato se ve condicionado en todo momento por la opulencia y el elitismo de Byron y sus acompañantes; al viajar a la India en avión o recurrir al uso de porteadores para su aventura también el viaje en sí pierde cierta aura de romanticismo que sí poseen otros libros sobre viajes al Tíbet.
Sin embargo, sin ser Byron un gran escritor y sin ser este libro un relato romántico y espiritual sobre el Tíbet, aporta ciertos elementos interesantes como las descripciones del paisaje, las gentes o las construcciones tibetanas. Aún sin ser un relato sensacional y edificante sobre el Tíbet, "Viaje al Tíbet" es un libro que merece la pena leer.
Resulta inevitable sentir cierta antipatía por Robert Byron, típico snob inglés de los años 20 que nos recuerda a alguno de los decadentes personajes de las novelas de Evelyn Waugh o Aldous Huxley. No solo el relato se ve condicionado en todo momento por la opulencia y el elitismo de Byron y sus acompañantes; al viajar a la India en avión o recurrir al uso de porteadores para su aventura también el viaje en sí pierde cierta aura de romanticismo que sí poseen otros libros sobre viajes al Tíbet.
Sin embargo, sin ser Byron un gran escritor y sin ser este libro un relato romántico y espiritual sobre el Tíbet, aporta ciertos elementos interesantes como las descripciones del paisaje, las gentes o las construcciones tibetanas. Aún sin ser un relato sensacional y edificante sobre el Tíbet, "Viaje al Tíbet" es un libro que merece la pena leer.
February 13, 2023
La partie sur l’aventure au Tibet est passionnante, la première moitié sur la Russie s’égare dans des descriptions lyriques et des débats d’artistes réservés aux érudits.
Malgré tout cet ouvrage retrace ce qu’était la « beauté « du Tibet et prédit sa future invasion.
Malgré tout cet ouvrage retrace ce qu’était la « beauté « du Tibet et prédit sa future invasion.
December 22, 2012
The Russian part made me finally appreciate Russian Byzantine art! The Tibetan section was, for me, easier to read & more reminiscent of The Station and The Road to Oxiana.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews