Customer Reviews

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Murphy's humor, tenacity and bravery are awe inspiring. She's attacked by wolves (or possibly wild dogs), wakes up in a tent after going to sleep out in the open, fends off an attempted rapist and has many other thrilling adventures. In one instance, when there are nefarious characters about, she is advised to booby trap her inn bedroom's doorway with empty bottles. In her journal, she calmly notes that emptying bottles is the one thing she's really good at.

I couldn't help feeling sad while reading this book. In 1965, when this book was published, most people were probably unfamiliar places like Kabul and Jalalabad. Now, of course, in the wake of the post-9/11 bombing of Afghanistan, Kabul is a household word. Turns out, that city was once breathtakingly beautiful, as well as the country around it. Murphy's trek takes her through Afghanistan at a time when the USSR and the US were vying for control of this country. The Russians were busy providing electricity and importing goods, while the Americans seemed to approach this ancient country with the intent to raze the traditional culture to the ground and replace it with a modern one. One wonders if, if both countries had never meddled with Afghanistan, there might never have been the Taliban? In any event, this book takes the reader back to a truly relevant experience of the not-so distant past.

I first read this book in the sixties in grade school. I bought the reissued edition, rediscovering it by coincidence. Ms. Murphy's journey in the early sixties is, if anything, more fascinating to read today in light of the changes in the Middle East since she travelled there. Her independence and cheerful acceptance of different cultures is refreshing. This book was written prior to the 'me' decade, and while intensely personal, lacks the self-preoccupation that more recent writers practice.

Additionally, unlike so many bicycle travelogues, this book doesn't focus on the author's bicycle! The focus remains on the journey, which renders it excellent reading for all, not just bicyclists.

This is a timeless read and one that can be revisited with pleasure.

It was by accident I discovered this book, but how fortunate it was! Murphy did not just ride a bicycle from Ireland to India, impressive in itself, but she lived and laughed and played with the Prince's and Peasants she met through out her journey. Her descriptions of the people she meets and the ancient lands she cross are simple and magical.

Some of her experiences seem to belong to fairy tales, other's remind's one of Arabian Nights, and at other times, it seemed Murphy was whisked into Tolkien's land of Middle Earth with fierce and gallant warriors on horseback.

I will quote a couple of passages which highlight her sense of humor and observation.

"...But it was worth it all to rise gradually from that fertile, warm valley to the still, cold splendour of the snow-line, where the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush crowd the horizon in every direction and one begins to understand why some people believe that gods live on mountain tops."

"...when suddenly I came on the most unexpected sight-a playing field complete with twenty-two youths and a soccer ball. I know very little about soccer, but enough to know this is how it is not played. No one ever moved about trotting speed, no one ever tried to tackle anyone else, the referee never used his whistle, the ball was never headed and the two goalies sat crosslegged between the posts most of the time, looking abstracted. The real excitement from a spectator's point of view was caused by the fact that one side of the field had a sheer drop of 200 feet, so that the main object of all the players was to keep the ball from going into the ravine rather than to kick it between the posts."

What a find! I'm amazed Dervla Murphy is not much better known. She has such an appealing vigor and zeal for adventure, combined with an acute eye for cultural observation and a rich capacity for description. Dervla takes one of the most audacious trips I've ever heard of, and undergoes some of the most harrowing and arduous of trials with non-showoff-y courage, such as when three heavy objects that turn out to be wolves fling themselves at her on a dark deserted road in the Balkans, or she is awakened in the middle of the night to find a "scantily dressed Kurd" standing over her bed. (In both instances her pocket pistol dispatched the dilemma without further ado.) Not only are these accounts riproaring, but she so warmly and affectionately describes the so-called "undeveloped" cultures she grows to know as she passes through remote stretches of Afganistan and Pakistan, that she quite awakens a First World reader to the narrowness of our outlook.

Reading this books is a fascinating way to travel with Dervla through central Asian and into India, circa 1962. I really enjoyed her eloquently stated commentary and the philosophical insights into her observations. I think I will have to agree about her on the political boundaries and on ancient vs. modern civilizations. This is also an excellent snapshot of that part of the world in 1962. Obviously a lot has changed since then.

Riding a bike from Ireland to India, what a magnificent feat in itself! Her observations and reflections on the ancient, remote cultures she comes across in Afganistan and Pakistan are recorded very beautifully and emphatically. She strives to consider all perspectives and in the process adds many dimensions to the story of her travels. Her books is full of deep insights that I think a lucky few in the world will have the opportunity to conclude themselves. As a previous reviewer has put it, "Why isn't Murphy more famous?" I wonder the same! My only guess is that perhaps she hasn't made the rounds on the American circuit... where the mass media machine is more far reaching and dominating.

Overall the books is beautifully written in my opinion. Being a native South Asian myself, and having lived in the high peaks of the Himalayas, I find it to be a really interesting foreign perspective on our cultures. Her prose are even more relevant today as swift modernization has really done more harm than good to the indigenous peoples at least on the Indian side of the mighty Himalayas. Meanwhile, war has taken it's toll on the Pakistani/Afghani side.

If you are reading this, thank you Dervla, for sharing your beautiful journey with the world. It is an inspiration.

Before I conclude this review, I'll share this brief excerpt from the book, one of my few favorites: "The more I see of unmechanized places and people, the more convinced I become that machines have done incalculable damage by unbalancing the relationship between Man and Nature. The mere fact that we think and talk as we do about Nature is symptomatic. For us to refer to Nature as a separate entity--something we admire or avoid or study or paint--shows how far we've removed ourselves from it.... I suppose all of scientific advances are a wonderful boost for the superior intellect of the human race but what those advances are doing to us seems to me quite literally tragic. After all, only a handful of people are concerned in the excitement and stimulation of discovering and developing, while millions lead feebler and more synthetic lives because of the achievements of that handful... people now use less than half their potential forces because "Progress" has deprived them of the incentive to live fully. I don't know what the end result of all this "progress" will be--something pretty dire, I should think. We remain part of Nature, however startling our scientific advances."

For anyone who read and enjoyed Into Thin Air, this book will definitely hold your interest. I challenge anyone to read three pages anywhere in the book and then put it down. Half awe-inspiring adventure, half Margaret Mead among the third world, it adds up to a whole that is both fascinating and, to this reader at least, utterly compelling. Inspiring for all women, I'd call this book a Must Read and highly recommend it to all my friends and children, both men and women.

This is a classic. I read it years ago and loved it. As an author of my own cycle touring book (Two Wheels and a Map), I'm fairly critical of these books when they are not engaging, and this one is one of the better ones. You really have to admire her for this journey. [...]

In 1963 when she was just over 30, Dervla Murphy made a biketrip all the way from France to India.The book is written in the form of a diary. After this book she wrote a lot of other books as well. I think The Ukimwi Road and Transsylvania and beyond are her best books. In my opinion Murphy is the most interesting woman travelwriter.

"Full Tilt" - a very interesting account of Author's bicycle journey from Ireland all the way through Europe and over towards and ending in India, with no companions.
Her account of Afghanistan was the most fascinating part of the book for me, and her delight in these people was lovely to read. I would have preferred better maps, those provided are unsatisfactory and I thought somewhat vague. Dervla was very brave, respectful, curious, but somewhat naive and even foolhardy at times; cycling over one mountain range she could have died of hunger because it was totally uninhabited and she was unable to get food or shelter. Of course, she didn't cycle ALL the way to India, she got rides along the way. The thing that would strike a reader today, is her casual smoking, and exchange of cigarettes for the hospitality so generously given along the way as people refused to take her money. We must remember her experiences back then, in the 1940's could not be duplicated today because of the increase in guns, drugs other dangers. For that reason, if no other, this is a very interesting book, by a most brave and courageous woman.

This is an amazing book, by a wonderful author. I would highly recommend reading it.