Book uploaded onto my device, I began to read with great interest. An Englishman haring around Tibet in the early fifties in search of a lost brother, it was bound to be a fascinating romp. How disappointed I was as page after page, then chapter after chapter, went by. It was all pleasantly written and vaguely interesting (but I started to bridle at every mention of a 'butter lamp', which seemed to occur on almost every page), but going absolutely nowhere.
I kept going, not least because I had 'paid' for this. If it had been a freebie, I would probably have given up by about the hundred and fifty page mark. It was all getting a little sub-Lost Horizon, and that was not what I had signed up for. Then suddenly, as if from nowhere, everything fell into place. It was like a band who had been on stage placidly strumming their nylon-strung acoustics strapping on the loudest and fastest guitars ever.
The romantic interplay, which had been pure tedium, suddenly began to matter. Then there was the action, the movement, the drama, suspense and excitement. The travails of our protagonist here are legion, and the backdrop of real geopolitical events made it all the more believable.
I finished the book somewhat emotionally battered but puzzled as to why Davidson takes so long to hit his stride. The are sections of 'Kolymsky Heights' that don't enthrall, but the initial and final journeys there are more than enough to sustain interest. When it is on form, this book is up there with the best in Buchan or Stevenson's works of derring do. The scenes trapped in icy Tibet also bring to mind 'Rogue Male' by Geoffrey Household.
The closeness of the three travellers at one point also left me thinking a little of Tintin, Chang and Snowy during their adventures in that very location. 'Tintin in Tibet' was created at almost exactly the same time, showing an awareness of Tibet among Europeans that was perhaps due to reports of the Chinese incursion.
In summary, plough (with your trusty butter lamp) through the first half and you will be rewarded no end. It is always nice to have initial expectations confounded, and here they very much were.
I finished the book somewhat emotionally battered but puzzled as to why Davidson takes so long to hit his stride. The are sections of 'Kolymsky Heights' that don't enthrall, but the initial and final journeys there are more than enough to sustain interest. When it is on form, this book is up there with the best in Buchan or Stevenson's works of derring do. The scenes trapped in icy Tibet also bring to mind 'Rogue Male' by Geoffrey Household.
The closeness of the three travellers at one point also left me thinking a little of Tintin, Chang and Snowy during their adventures in that very location. 'Tintin in Tibet' was created at almost exactly the same time, showing an awareness of Tibet among Europeans that was perhaps due to reports of the Chinese incursion.
In summary, plough (with your trusty butter lamp) through the first half and you will be rewarded no end. It is always nice to have initial expectations confounded, and here they very much were.
