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Robert Byron - First Russia, Then Tibet
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Robert Byron, the Penultimate Travel Writer, on Visiting Russia and Tibet in the early '30's.
His visit to Russia, perspicacious observer of customs, intelligent, entirely at odds with the revolution and the 5 year plan, rejecting all offers to tour the factories and means of production instead spending his time in the churches looking up the Icon Painters Roublev & Theophanes, studying Byzantine art, visiting the portrait "Our Lady of Vladimir", making his notes on architecture, the mood and disposition of the populace.
He's erudite, well educated, informed, the ideal travel writer.
Then, by Aeroplane to Iraq, which takes a week as they are forever stopping in Spain, Italy, Greece, Africa, Turkey - for lunch, to overnight, to visit and see the sights, take on petrol, pick up mail, much like a jaunty automobile trip, visiting all the furthest flung outposts of the Empire, stopping at abandoned forts and castles still populated with the dressed skeletons of the former inhabitants.
Once upon a time he was the norm, for an educated man of privilege, now he would be rarer than...well.
His descriptions, Darjeeling, the climb into Tibet, the oft-repeated instances of British Bad Behaviour and unfavourable reporting on their customs (culturally insensitive, and Byron after his own fashion continues the tradition) in Tibet had made them rather unwelcome visitors, and so he's travelling without the certainty that he'll be allowed in...
British Tourism hasn't changed much.
Comical but cruel descriptions of the locals, stooping to the scathing, his descriptive powers are unsurpassed, every course of every meal is detailed, his descriptions of the flora, fauna, customs, he epitomizes the British Nobleman Abroad, easy manners, privilege, his condescension towards the local people and custom.
It's a great read, and I while I frequently find I share his views (or means of expressing them) it also is a reminder to question my prejudices, again, it would be as interesting to read some of the local commentary made upon him. A much different travel writer than Alexandra David-Néel, who covered the same ground but in an entirely different fashion not even a decade before.
Solaris - Tarkovsky
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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This came up on my YouTube, you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZhQPaw4r
Interesting, it's the Soviet answering to and picking up where 2001 - A Space Odyssey left off.
The plot, in a nutshell, revolves around a trio of astronauts in orbit about a planet that appears to be alive, and capable of reading their unconscious thoughts and returning them to the station in human form.
In a sense a little like "Stalker". And a bit of horror, in that your unconscious thoughts can take physical shape and haunt you...
Notes; that while Tarkovsky spends a lot building a mock-up of a space station, it's entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand, which is - in a nutshell - how can we make and sustain a meaningful contact with an alien species when we so poorly understand ourselves?
It's merely a backdrop to tell a very different sort of story.
It doesn't bog itself down with irrelevant science techno-babble to try and explain what's going on, it's merely the dynamic of a group of people that are in a situation they are at a loss to explain...
Noteworthy, the long traffic sequence, blood through veins, how we are as well a part of a larger organization we can’t expect to comprehend, as well the folly of man's vision, as evidenced by the illustration torn from "Don Quixote", that all this science, exploration, is a fool's errand...
Anyways, curious, Canon, but probably not for everyone. But I notice his "Mirror, Mirror" is also on YouTube, and so that might be my next watch...
Volume 2 - Lewis & Clark
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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In which they cross over the rockies, go down the Columbia, spend the summer on the West Coast, returning the following year. While Lewis & Clark do split up after crossing the rockies they do not go into the territory of Yellowstone or the Black Hills, which rather disappointed me as I would like to have read their observations. And again the superfluity of game, black bears, grizzly bears, bison, elk, moose, wolves, swift foxes, etc, etc.
The second volume again reminds one of the horrors that were commonplace, flies, mosquitos, gnats, ticks, abscesses, the scourge of illnesses now largely extinct or forgotten about....
Descriptions of unknown illnesses cured through sweat lodges, of a Chief lying perfectly still, a paralysis of sound mind and body, for 3 years, descriptions vague enough that no concrete diagnosis can be made.
Then, on the Pacific side, there are the descriptions of the countless villages and charnel houses they investigated along the way; the grave goods offered, the sacrificing of horses to honour dead tribe members. And the descriptions, largely unflattering, of the various tribes they encountered, the head-binding & shaping techniques used to mark identity amongst different tribes, their various appearances and customs, etc, etc.
One highlight, the return of a medal bestowed upon a chief, the chief knowing to be wary of strangers bearing gifts, a tale as old as time, because with the gifts attend the invisible miasma of disease, guns, war, and change.
Now - as interesting as that all was, and informative, it's time now to try and find some contemporaneous native writings on Lewis & Clark to, to try and understand and see the other point of view, too often we're left with the victors narrative and miss out on the impression they might have made upon the tribes they contacted, which would be as valuable. Lewis & Clark were only heroes to the American Government, I suspect strongly they were not so well regarded by the locals...
John Wheeler - The Tear in Reality
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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John Wheeler, American Theoretical Physicist, striving to create a unified theory of everything that was objectively the same to all observers. Which, as the article lays out, was no easy task.
Link: Quanta Magazine - John Wheeler, the Tear in Reality
Link: Bio on Wikipedia
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