Customer Reviews

Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalists Account of China's "Great Northwest"

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Across Mongolian Plains is one of the classic accounts of early 20th Century Hunting in Central Asia. It is also an excellent account of Mongolia prior to the Communist takeover in 1923. I can find no faults with the book as written by Andrews. However, my personal opinion of this edition is that it is not worth the money asked for it. It is a poorly made paperback, and the publisher has not reproduced any of the original photographs with the one exception being the frontis, which in my copy looks like a cheesy Xerox. This book is still available in the 1920's Blue Ribbon reprint, in hardback with photos for less than this "new" paperback. I am VERY dissapointed with this edition. Save your money and search out an original copy, you will find it far more satisfying. The first edition D. Appleton & Co. edition is still available as well.

I have a copy of the 1921 Blue Ribbon "popular' edition (possibly an undated later reprinting) of "Across Mongolian Plains," and will not contribute to the debate on the quality of the paperback edition (see the two earlier reviews). I do think it is important to point out that the book belongs to the early twentieth century, and reflects its values. Readers should be prepared to make allowances for this, or not bother. Of course, those who pass it by will be missing some first-class storytelling.

Andrews, who first came to the attention of scientists as a skilled taxidermist, shows his enthusiasm for turning live animals into specimens for mounting. Despite praise of individual Asian acquaintances, he falls into ethnic stereotypes whenever he deals with nations or groups for any length of time. Some of his judgements on foreign cultures must have seemed odd, even at the time. Maybe the decline of Lamaism would restore the "virility of the Mongol nation" -- whatever that means. But if it means anything, why would he find it so desirable? If Andrews didn't remember Genghis Khan, the Chinese and the Russians certainly did!

Ironically, the expedition seems to have made both the first and last Western observations of some traditional Mongolian Buddhist religious observances, later swept away in the aftermath of Russian and Chinese revolutions.

Anyone hoping for accounts of fossil-hunting in the Gobi Desert will also be in for an unpleasant surprise. That belonged to subsequent expeditions, in later years.

Readers interested in the context of this and later Andrews expeditions will probably find Charles Gallenkamp's "Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions" their most helpful guide.

(Reposted from my "anonymous" review of September 10, 2003.)

This edition is the anastatic copy of the original 1920's book. As all attempts of this kind it has its drawbacks, that in this case consist mostly of the absence of the photographs, that in the original edition were by Andrews' wife Yvette.

This book is the abridged journal of what was successively known as the Second Asiatic Zoological Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History carried out in 1920 in Mongolia and parts of China. Roy Champman Andrews was a great explorer and comunicator and had already written two books one on whale hunting and another together with his wife of a previous expedition in China in 1916-17.

After a brief introduction on the history of Mongolia and its political turmoils, the book is essentially a journal of a year of roaming through the rolling plains of Northwestern China and Mongolia, with the intent to hunt animals for the Museum's permanent exhibitions. The first journeys are by car, from which it is easier to shoot at the fast antelopes and wolves of the plains. After a stay in Urga (the modern Ulan Batar, capital city of modern Mongolia),that is maybe the book's most interesting part because of the description of the temples and cerimonies that do not exist anymore, Andrews and his wife decide to spend some time as the nomads do on horse back. They hunt marmots and enjoy the plains among the friendly nomads.

Successively Andrews decides to visit the Northern Forest above Urga, but the hunting is to dangerous for his wife, that is left back. Together with Harry Caldwell they look for and savagely hunt roe buck, waipiti, argali, goral and whatever else moves.

This book is obviously dated, and if a modern naturalist reads it the hair will surely stand strait on his head. The last chapters are really a slaughter house of some of the worlds most beautiful animals with the intent of conserving them for knowledge of the future generations. However, if read in the appropriate frame of mind it is a fantastic documentation of long ago ideals, mentality and facts, that are described with impartiality but absolutely no empathy differently to what will successively be done by for example Lattimore and others.

Andrews reaches almost a poetic evocation when he describes landscape and colors, expecially that of the fur of the animals he kills.

This book reminded me of the film "Dersu Uzala".

A very interesting antiquarian read.

I found nothing wrong with either the book or the printing. This is a simply fabulous book, from either the viewpoint of a real-life adventure story, or for historical details for somebody studying the period.

OK, OK, so I'm not a hunter. Just remember, if you aren't either, you're going to find this tome a bit on the tedious side. Wow ! My sheep. Wow ! My antelope. Wow! My wapiti. They're all gonna look so great stuffed and standing in New York's Natural History Museum. And on and on. Of course this book was published in 1921. It was a different time with different values, I admit. I bought it in 1973, already a bit too late for my "boy's own adventure" stage and I just read it now. It's written in a style that has been left behind by society, though it reads smoothly and you keep hoping that he will get sick of shooting anything that moves. People who travel to faroff lands to shoot and trap countless animals for whatever reasons are no longer the Indiana Jones-model idols that Roy Chapman Andrews or Frank Buck might have been way back when. Shooting antelope and wolves from a moving car is not my idea of heroism. Even when Andrews died back in 1960, the world did not issue a great sigh of sadness. He had already outlived his time.

You might read this book thinking to learn about Mongolia (and there's a fairly long section on north China too). You could get some insights into the landscape and how romantic camel caravans looked at sunset, etc. By accident, in his descriptions of what he saw as he rode off to kill something else or drove around with his American/British friends, you can get the feel of bygone days in what we used to call "the Orient". Driving in Mongolia certainly was no picnic. Andrews generally liked Mongols. But you will also get jokes about "negroes" running from ghosts, Chinese helpers always referred to as "boys", and sentences like (as Andrews was annoyed at an excited Chinese assistant) "Finally seizing him by the collar, I threw him to the ground so violently that he realized his place was behind us." (p.244) Where was Bruce Lee when we really needed him ? Mongolia and China were going through tremendous political turmoil, but Andrews was into shooting pigs. That's why I'm only giving it two stars. Fans of hunting adventure will probably disagree. Sorry, folks, I'm a man of today, reviewing books for people of today.