Customer Reviews

Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey

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When I was a kid in the 1950s I collected stamps and had quite a few from a mysterious little land called "Tannu Tuva". It always intrigued me because though I could find it on the old globe we had at home (made before the USSR swallowed the unfortunate Tuvans in 1944)I never heard the slightest news from there, nor did I ever hear of anyone going or coming from that little red country sandwiched between the yellow Soviet Union and green Mongolia. Time passed. A lot of time. Fast forward in fact, forty years. One day I saw a new book advertised--TUVA OR BUST. I could scarcely believe that somebody else in America remembered that hapless little country that once issued diamond and triangle stamps with yaks, camels, archers, and horsemen on them. Yet, they had it at our local bookstore. I bought it and read it as soon as I got home. What a treat ! I had never heard of Richard Feynman, not being a physics aficionado, but he turned out to be a great character. I enjoyed reading about his years-long efforts with Ralph Leighton to get to Tuva. They went through all kinds of trouble and interesting side voyages. I strongly recommend that you read this book. For me, reading the book was only a beginning. I listened to the plastic disc of Tuvan throat singing that came with the book, and subsequently bought tapes and attended Tuvan concerts by the group Huun Huur Tu in Boston. I also became a "Friend of Tuva". You can find their website on the net. I still drive around with my 'Tuva or Bust' bumper sticker. All of this stemmed from reading this delightful book on a faraway, unknown country and two people's adventures trying to get there. A very pleasurable experience.

"Tuva or Bust!" is the story of three friends in the 1980s, who were determined to travel to Tuva, a little known land in Central Asia, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union. Their original motivation? As Richard Feynman says in the first chapter, "A place that's spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L (Tuva's capitol) has just got to be interesting!"

The book chronicles the adventures and misadventures of Ralph Leighton, one of Feynman's longtime friends. Though the book is subtitled "Richard Feynman's Last Journey," it's really Leighton's story; Feynman is more of an inspiration and a supporting character. Over several years, Leighton and his friends wrote letters, researched articles, read books, and became more and more fascinated by Tuva, a tiny country in the middle of nowhere. They learned, among other things, that Tuvans practice three different types of steppe herding lifestyles, within a hundred miles of each other, and that Tuva is the home of throat-singing, a musical technique in which a single person produces two notes at the same time.

Leighton's narration is chatty, reminiscent of Feynman's autobiographical works; one suspects Leighton learned to tell anecdotes from his friend. However, Leighton isn't as inherently fascinating a narrator as Feynman. Also, Feynman's persistent cancer, which kept him from participating in several preliminary trips, and finally killed him shortly before Leighton received permission for a group of Americans to travel to Tuva itself, casts a pall over the book.

Still, this is a fascinating story -- a great example of what people can do if they really care about a cause, and don't realize precisely how little chance they have of succeeding. It is also informative, if somewhat superficial in its description of Tuvan culture; I now want to know more about Central Asian peoples, and Tuvans in particular. But while the chapter "Reflections 2000," included in the new paperback version of "Tuva or Bust!" is interesting, I really don't think it was fair of Leighton to mention a new idea for a Tuvan monument to Feynman, and refuse to give any details. Now I want another reprint!

I began reading "Tuva or Bust" as a result of my admiration for physicist Richard Feynman. Although subtitled "Richard Feynman's Last Journey," "Tuva or Bust" is more about the efforts of the author, Richard Leighton, to get permission and the means to visit a Soviet republic formerly known as Tannu Tuva in the 1980's because "any country whose capital is spelled 'Kyzyl' must be worth visiting." The book is simultaneously an adventure story, a manual on how to do research and a loving (in a manly way) tribute to the genius of Richard Feynman. I learned more from this little book than from the last half-dozen tomes consumed. As an added bonus, (the hardcover edition, at least) contains a vinyl record with samples of Tuvan "throat singing" in which the singer produces two notes simultaneously!

I would never had read this book had I not recently had the chance to see Huun Huur Tu, a throat-singing voice from Tuva. But now that I am fascinated by this little-known, remote area along the Russian-Mongolian border, I found this book very entertaining. It chronicles the enormous challege of trying to visit such a remote land in the days before Glasnost and a fascinating cast of characters at its heart.
I think my only complaint is that the book loses steam at the end, which I guess is understandable, given the fate of its main protagonist. But overall, it is a wonderful testament to a group of brilliant folks, who spend years trying to follow through on a quest.

This book is more about Ralph than it is about Richard. But it gives us some insight as to what life was like living close to Dr. Feynman. He was a character and when he came up with going to Tuva how could you resist? Its so far fetched that it might just be possible for a couple of USA physicists to go to a place deep within the communist Soviet Union and make friends. Another great read in the series that starts in "Surely you must be joking." (BTW the first book is still the best of these 3. However I wanted to know more after reading each one so onward I treked.

I just had a few miscellaneous comments on this book.

Although this book isn't so much about Feynman's last trip as about the trials and tribulations he and his longtime friend Leighton experienced trying to get there, this was still an enjoyable book. Feynman himself passed away from cancer shortly before they got permission to actually travel to Tuva, a remote region of Mongolia near the Altai mountains, a 10,000-foot-high mountain range that separates eastern Mongolia from western China. But because of his illness, Feynman himself isn't so much the protagonist in this story so much as the inspiration, as Leighton discusses the research and preparations that led up to the final journey. But there is still enough of the inimitable Feynman, the "curious character" as he calls himself, in the narrative for it to be enjoyable to long-time Feynman fans. The pictures of Feynman in an elaborate Tahitian headress playing the drums at a concert and dressed up like a Tibetan lama with hat and prayer wheel are truly comical and show the great physicist certainly had a sense of humour about himself too--even as he was dying from cancer.

I came to the book partly because I already knew something about Tuvan throat singing and had read a little bit about Ural-Altaic linguistics, and so knew something about the Mongolian languages, and a little about the life-style of the herders in the area. It turns out the Altaic language group has had some capable linguists studying the family over the last 30 years, and a lot more is known now than in the past. I've found at least one site with much good information on Mongolian and Altaic languages on the web in the last year.

But all that was by way of saying, stangely enough, that I actually knew something about this remote and obscure area of the world before reading this book, and so was interested to see what sort of adventures Feynman and his friend might have there. Although Feynman himself never made it there, I learned much about the country I hadn't known before, and having Feynman's unique and funny perspective on it made it all the more enjoyable.

If you're reading this review, you've probably read dozens of witicisms from Richard Feynman, one of science's most colorful characters. Though the name suggests otherwise, this is really about a Feynman inspired journey.

Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman spot a stamp from Tuva, which inspires Leighton's journey around the world. What makes the book an interesting read is that you can easily follow Feyman's curious energy in the actions and writing of the author. This really brings the heart of the book's value - this type of intellectual curiosity is not just the property of Richard Feynman. Anyone can chase a journey because it's fun or because it's there.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and hope that you do too.

This is a book by Ralph Leighton. It chronicles the adventures he and others had in trying to get to visit Tanu Tuva with Richard Feynman, the American Nobel prize-winning physicist.

Do you know where Tanu Tuva is located? I do, as I once saw it on a globe years ago. It was a country wedged between Russia and Mongolia, but Stalin took it over in the 1940's. Like the people in the book, exotic locales like this interest me, so I had to read this book.

The subtitle of the book is "Richard Feynman's Last Journey" - but Feynman died before getting to Tuva. Sort of sad after all the trouble they went to to get there. The author did go, but it was very anti-climatic, as he barely said anything about the actual trip after pages on all the hoops they had to go through to get there.

If you read the book, it seems like Feynman was involved, but not nearly as much as the author and others mentioned in the book. Well, Feynman was famous, so I guess the subtitle helped attract attention to the book. In any case, the story is interesting and illustrates how weird and frustrating it was to deal with the old USSR - something quickly being forgotten perhaps.

To digress, I had a Russian penpal during communist rule, and it was interesting. I had to use registered mail (very expensive) to be sure he saw my letters. He actually defected to England before the Communists were out in Russia, and I got to meet him there at the end of a business trip. Sort of made the book relate to me more as I had this experience.

Getting back to the book review, I do recommend the book. It is like a time capsule for life so different, but not that long ago. Give it a look.

Watch for "Genghis Blues" a Sundance Film Festival winner. The story of a blind blues singer who hears the Tuva-style throat singing over the short-wave radio and learns how to do it. He then contacts Leighton's "Friends of Tuva" and what a great story of how a motley group visits Tuva and one member enters the throat singing contest. A must-see film for fans of this book. Let's get the book BACK in print!

It was all just accidental. I stumbled upon this book through a documentary that I rented, called Ganghis Blues. I like all types of music and thought "A documentary about Blues music, cool..." After realizing what a fortune of life I had found in this movie, I was drawn to everything TUVA. SO, to the book I go. The book of course came before the documentary, and obviously was an influence in the boys who produced it. When was the last time a book did something for your soul? This one touches your soul, your heart and your longing to achieve a goal or live out a dream. Aaaah. I loved it.