Scan barcode
toadalvin's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
chinney's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
Great travelogue interweaving Russian and Chinese life on the Amur. Surprised how much life is so far north. Discussions about many minorities and indigenous people near the delta. Recommended.
fantine729's review against another edition
2.0
On page 41, the author described a Mongolian woman as “simian”, which pretty much immediately tanked the book for me. Travel is supposed to open minds, expand horizons, and offer perspectives different than one’s own, but especially for a travel writer, Thubron is remarkably colonialist, racist, patronizing, narrow-minded, and walks through others’ worlds like he deserves to be there, much of which may be due to his being a white male octogenarian. A monk prone to giggling is described as childlike and simple, despite a guide’s explaining how educated, learned and polyglottic he is. Indeed, the greater the language barrier (anyone not speaking Russian or English), invariably the “simpler” the native people were made out to be. By the time the FSB (“the KGB to you”, as a guide later in the book explained) hauled his butt in for a few hours of questioning, I found I was rooting for the FSB.
The only saving grace that afforded my review one extra star was that the journey itself was fascinating. I had Google Earth open as I read it so I could try to find street views along the way, or just bare bones geography or photos if there were no street views. As someone who studied Russian in high school and college in the 80s and 90s, I enjoyed learning about a large part of the country far from Moscow and the west. And the journey (and perhaps the FSB experience) did appear to humble and soften Thubron a bit. He slightly stopped traveling the Amur like he owned it and started making deeper connections with his guides and the people he met along the way, though I can’t say there was enough of a worldview change to offer redemption.
The only saving grace that afforded my review one extra star was that the journey itself was fascinating. I had Google Earth open as I read it so I could try to find street views along the way, or just bare bones geography or photos if there were no street views. As someone who studied Russian in high school and college in the 80s and 90s, I enjoyed learning about a large part of the country far from Moscow and the west. And the journey (and perhaps the FSB experience) did appear to humble and soften Thubron a bit. He slightly stopped traveling the Amur like he owned it and started making deeper connections with his guides and the people he met along the way, though I can’t say there was enough of a worldview change to offer redemption.
lfraire's review against another edition
Don't know enough of the basic history to understand the historic call backs in this travel book