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Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel

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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.

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.