News from Tartary [Paperback]

Peter Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 2001

THERE IS NOT much to say about this book by way of introduction. It describes an undeservedly successful attempt to travel overland from Peking in China to Kashmir in India. The journey took seven months and covered about 3,500 miles...With masterly understatement Peter Fleming begins this account of what is one of the true epics of adventure. With his companion, Eva Maillart, and motivated largely by curiosity, they set out across a China torn by civil war to journey through Sinkiang to British India. It had been eight years since a traveller had crossed Sinkiang; in between times those who had entered this inhospitable and politically volatile area seldom left alive. This, China's most westerly province, was under the control of a rebel warlord supported by Stalin's Red Army. Within it there was yet further civil war and the southern oases through which Fleming and Maillart had to travel were under the control of yet another rebel force. Entering the province by a little known and almost lethal route and following the path of the Silk Road, they ended up in Kashgar before crossing the Pamirs to India. Beautifully written and superbly observed, this is not simply a superb account of a part of the world few of us will ever see, but also a marvellous insight into the last days of the Great Game, when Britain and Russia still faced each other across a Central Asia in a state of anarchy. It is a magnificent travelogue by one of the last and greatest adventures of Empire.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Its entertainment value is immense. It will arouse great fury and cause much pleasure - an epic of adventure' - Harold Nicolson 'It confirmed Fleming's place in the front rank of travel writers... no modern work of travel has given me more pleasure... I have read it more times than I can remember' Daily Telegraph

From the Publisher

9 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: Birlinn (November 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843410036
• ISBN-13: 978-1843410034
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,054,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Half a book, April 21, 2001

By 

A. Scott Earle (Sun Valley,ID USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir (Paperback)

Peter Fleming's "News from Tartary" is a classic travel book about trekking through the wilds of Asia. Unfortunately, it has been badly served by this edition; it's overpriced and lacking in quality. It doesn't have the 26 illustrations of the original; it doesn't even have the absolutely necessary map. Reading it is like watching a great movie without sound or captions. Fleming (Ian Fleming's brother, as it happens)would have had a well-turned phrase of damnation had he seen how this edition emasculates the original. I urge you to read the book, but not this way. Go online and buy a used copy of the hardback for not much more (over 50 copies were listed when I checked abebooks.com)and enjoy Fleming's travel saga as it deserves to be enjoyed. I feel cheated; readers should be informed when a reprint edition is, like this one, incomplete. My one star rating is not for the writing--its for this shoddy presentation of a great travel book.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Professionally amateur, August 23, 2000

By 

P. R. Neville-Hadley - See all my reviews
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This review is from: News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir (Paperback)

This is probably the best travel narrative ever written about China (although Owen Lattimore's 'The Desert Road to Turkestan' is a close second) and has influenced a great deal of subsequent writing about the region--not in content, but in style. Fleming presents himself as a bumbling amateur traveller, a mild eccentric, and someone who has only the vaguest idea what's going on. Later writers, attracted no doubt by the fact that this book has stayed in print for nearly 70 years, have taken this as justification to write narratives which revel in their own ignorance. But Fleming's amateurishness is merely a pose, and the book is full of humorous detail on life in China at that time, backed by sound journalism and knowledge of the political situation. It's also full of perceptive observations on the people he meets and their behaviour, guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of the modern traveller when coming across their latter day counterparts, both Chinese and expatriate foreigner.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic of Travel Writing, June 6, 2000

By 

J. Blilie "Naturalist-Skeptic" (Twin Cities, MN) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir (Paperback)

I haven't bought this edition yet. I read this while in Nepal and India and loved it. It is one of the finest pieces of travel writing I know of. I rank it with Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet", Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Thesiger's "Arabian Sands" and Stark's "Valleys of the Assassins." No new-age, PC navel-gazing here: just an honest and humorously-told narrative of an adventurous overland crossing of central Asia in a turbulent time. If you are interested in central Asia, I think this book is a must.