A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

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urn:oclc:867469805 Republisher_date 20120831082856 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120825044406 Scanner scribe1.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) Eric Newby by perchance had, in real life, something similar happen to him in 1956. He had had enough of the rag trade, talked to a great mate, Hugh Carless, and next minute they were off to climb a little hill in a nearby county. Something like that anyway. The experiences of the author and his friend, Hugh Carless, during a walking expedition through Nuristan urn:lcp:shortwalkinhindu00eric_0:epub:61fcce03-2a36-495b-8adb-914566f30566 Extramarc OhioLINK Library Catalog Foldoutcount 0 Identifier shortwalkinhindu00eric_0 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8v99cm1c Isbn 0140095756 Rather than then returning to England, tails between their legs, they proceeded onward with a difficult climb over a mountain ridge and down into the next valley, thus passing into Nuristan. They had a number of adventures among a people so isolated that they thought Newby and Carless must be Russians, with whom they were familiar as rifle salesmen -- and so wild and incomprensible that Newby feared they must be mad.

So here we have two pretentious ill prepared dandies floundering around the mountain, looking for a way to the top, enduring all sorts of rough demands, bullying their way along the trial.Newby writes in a humorous, self-deprecating and understated style about their efforts to properly outfit themselves and prepare for what he increasingly realized would be a totally foolhardy ordeal. The early chapters read like "Laurel and Hardy Go Mountaineering." Carless appears insouciant and confident; Newby was in a constant state of panic and alarm. Frater wrote that the book had "become the literary equivalent of a listed building", but that he far preferred Love and War. [29]

Bingham, James; Brooksbank, Quentin; Wynne, Mark (2012). "A Short Winter in the Hindu Kush" (PDF). British Mountaineering Council . Retrieved 23 April 2013. He intertwines his cast of characters, complex landscapes, diverse cultural customs, and histories like an Oscar winning Director. It isn't what story he is telling, but how he tells it; smooth, seamless, and adventurous. The "Hindu Kush" is the western part of the Himalayan Construct at Central Asia and the "top of the world." (Everest, K2 and similar record-breakers lie farther east). We Americans don't use that term so much, but consider that the Khyber Pass is part of the Hindu Kush. This travelogue has some of the best anecdotes you could ask for. Misadventures galore. What were they thinking? Two out-of-shape pasty-pale gits thinking they could just stroll up the sides of Mt Everest? It's a wonder they weren't killed. Newby of course said "yes," walking away from his career in the fashion industry. And thus was born his best-selling travel adventure, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

Eric Newby (1919-2006) went on to a career of travel writing and is memorialized in this 2010 edition with its Afterword by fellow adventurer Hugh Carless (1925-2011). The Preface by writer Evelyn Waugh was already included in the first hardcover edition in 1958. FROM MY BLOG) By 1956, Eric Newby had devoted ten years of his life to working as a dress buyer for a London fashion house. Then one day, he received a telegram from Hugh Carless, a casual friend, asking "CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE?" Tonkin, Boyd (5 November 2010). "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, By Eric Newby". The Independent. Archived from the original on 13 June 2015 . Retrieved 20 February 2018. Fox, Margalit (24 October 2006). "Eric Newby, 86, Acclaimed British Travel Writer, Dies". The New York Times . Retrieved 4 April 2013. From 1973 until 1977, Carless headed the FCO's Latin-American department before his ministerial appointment as chargé d'affaires in Buenos Aires, where he monitored the disputed sovereignty of islands in the Beagle Channel, and the Falklands. He was appointed CMG in 1976. Following a secondment to Northern Engineering Industries, Carless served until his retirement, in 1985, as ambassador in Caracas.

This review of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush was prepared alongside a podcast conversation about the book with Aaron Millar. Review by Jeremy Bassetti.The Austrian alpinist Adolf Diemberger wrote in a 1966 report that in mountaineering terms Newby and Carless's reconnaissance of the Central Hindu Kush was a "negligible effort", admitting however that they "almost climbed it". [47] The climb was more warmly described in the same year as "The first serious attempt at mountaineering in that country [the Afghan Hindu Kush]" by the Polish mountaineer Boleslaw Chwascinski. [5] This was entertaining, although maybe a little too long and detailed, and definitely slightly dated in its attitudes (although not unbearably so).