Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel [Hardcover]

Barbara M. Foster (Author), Michael Foster (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Explorer, feminist and an authority on Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan tantrism, Paris-born Louise Eugenie Alexandrine Marie David (18681969) was the author of 30 books on anthropology, geography, history, orientalism and philologyall, like her life, crammed with adventure. Nearing middle age and retired as an opera singer, she became the mistress and, subsequently, the wife of Philip Neel, a philandering French engineer in Tunis, whose financial support enabled her to spend her remaining life away from him. Eventually, disguised as a Tibetan beggar and having meanwhile adopted as her son a young Tibetan, she arrived at last in Lhasa in the winter of 1924, the first European woman to enter that forbidden city. Thereafter, until she died at the age of 101, she settled in southeastern France, in a villa named Fortress of Meditation, and received honors, awards, accolades from scholars, governments and institutions of learning. Despite its idiosyncratic manner and style, this romantic biography, relying extensively on David-Neel's letters and papers, adequately tells the story of an extraordinarily courageous woman. Barbara Foster teaches at Hunter College in Manhattan, Michael Foster is the author of Freedom's Thunder, a novel. Photos.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Born in 1858, Frenchwoman David-Neel went to London at 20 to study occultism, flirted with anarchism, and sang with an opera company that toured Indochina. At age 40 she began to write and lecture on Buddhism. At 55 she entered Tibet from China, traversed the mountains on foot, and became the first European woman to enter the holy city of Lhasa. The manuscripts that she brought out and translated preserve much of the culture that would otherwise be lost. This first biography in English is based on interviews, on David-Neel's books and letters, and on dossiers kept by governments that thought she was a spy. It takes care to explain the religious and cultural backgrounds and should appeal to general readers as well as scholars. Sally Mitchell, English Dept., Temple Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (November 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062503456
• ISBN-13: 978-0062503459
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,707,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite a woman!, February 21, 2005

By 

Evelyn Uyemura (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel (Paperback)

But not a woman I would want to be friends with! Alexandra herself is full of contradictions. She used people shamelessly, particularly her husband, whom she hardly ever lived with, but from whom she demanded money for decades. She wandered Asia for 14 years at a go, sending him letters demanding cash throughout the entire period.

In addition she picked up a 14 year old Tibetan(Sikkimese) boy as basically a servant, but eventually "adopted" him as her son. But she always treated him as a servant, even after she took him back to France with her. She claimed he was a lama, and the book indicates that he was believed to be a tulku (reincarnation), but she still thought of his as "her boy" when he was in his 40s and 50s. Her egotism was massive, and in her later days she was impossible.

At the same time, she claimed to be a practicing Buddhist, but compassion and selflessness are nowhere to be seen. In fact, she was more enamored of the occult side of Tibetan Buddhism than of the compassionate side. (And there is a large occult side!) In her writings she maintains a slightly cynical attitude towards the "superstitions" of the ordinary Tibetans, but she was more than willing to make use of these superstitions in order to get something she needed out of the poverty-striken folk she met on her treks. She "disguised" herself as a poor beggar, but in fact, that is what she really was. And she expected to fool people into thinking that she was Tibetan and the mother of her Tibetan "son" simply by darkening her face and hair. I am sure that anyone with eyes could see that her features were not Tibetan in any way.

Nevertheless, one has to admire her determination and her ability to endure all sorts of hardships when she was in her 50s and beyond. One also has to admire her facility in learning to both read and speak Tibetan (along with English and Sanskrit, as well as her native French.) Perhaps her egotism is more notable because she is a woman. We are used to admiring this kind of ego-driven determination in 19th/early 20th century male "explorers." But we see more clearly in a woman how over-powering a person had to be to barge their way into other lands and cultures.

The writing of this biography is less than wonderful. The authors have the annoying habit of trying to find phrases to describe the subject of their study, rather than repeating her name. But one tires of "the orientalist," "the Parisienne," "the French Buddhist," "the Amazon," and so on more than one would tire of simply "she" or "Alexandra." THis biography clears up some thing that David-Neel covered over in her own writings, and it enables one to put her writings into context. It is also even-handed, neither condemning her faults nor idolizing her.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiration, November 16, 2003

By 

Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel (Paperback)

Forbidden Journey - The Life of Alexandra David-Neal by Barbara and Michael Foster's a good one, full of good laughs and a flood of underlying inspiration. I don't know that the inspiration comes from the Foster handling of the subject matter so much as the amusingly human David-Neal phenomenon. Ms. David-Neal pursued the life she wanted to pursue against all odds in a time and place where it had no business happening.

Her grit and determination, on the one hand, and her unapologetic disingenuousness in the methods used to follow her chosen course are a striking contrast to the evidently superficial Buddhist path she followed. Time after time in the book the reader will shake his head in wonderment as he reads her letters cajoling her husband for more money, while explaining she'll be ready to come home in 'just a little more time'. A 19th Century European woman wintering alone with her servants year after year above 13000 feet in the Himalayans.

If this book doesn't inspire readers to accept the reality that anyone can do and be anything he wishes in this life, probably nothing will do so.