The Road to Oxiana

<b>QUANDO VIAGGIARE ERA UN PIACERE</b> <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1506841795i/24057534._SX540_.jpg" width="400" height="262" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>Tra il 1933 e il 1934, Robert Byron viaggiò in Palestina, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan.</b><br><br>Ho intrecciato e intervallato la lettura di questo bel libro con 'Talibani' di Ahmed Rashid, mi è sembrata una giusta abbinata. <br>E non mi sbagliavo: andare avanti e indietro nella Storia è servito a sentirsi 'circondato'.<br><br>Anche perché Robert Byron ha la capacità di immergerci in quello che incontra e vede, mischiando con gusto, sapienza e divertimento l'architettura antica alla gente che incontra, creando una perfetta continuità.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1506841795i/24057535._SX540_.jpg" width="400" height="353" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>Un’immagine della Torre di Gumbad-i-Kabus scatenò il fascino di Byron per la Persia.</b><br><br>Meno estetizzante di Chatwin, che si portò dietro questo libro consumandolo nel corso di ripetute letture, Byron è ben provvisto del tipico humour britannico che arricchisce di brio queste pagine (come immagino riusciva a fare una spruzzata di seltz tenuto al fresco in mezzo alla neve col suo whiskey nascosto in fiaschette che venivano spacciate per succo di frutta!).<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1506841795i/24057536._SY540_.jpg" width="400" height="516" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>La nicchia (mihrab) della moschea di Ardistan, del 1158</b><br><br>Leggere Robert Byron è un piacere acuto come le sue osservazioni, vivo come le sue descrizioni.<br>E, nonostante le difficoltà e i disagi che racconta, come si fa a non desiderare forte di essere lì?<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1506841795i/24057537._SY540_.jpg" width="400" height="531" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>La Torre della Vittoria di Ghazni.</b><br><br>PS: <br><i>Finalmente ecco l'Asia senza complessi d'inferiorità</i>, scriveva Byron lasciando la Persia ed entrando in Afghanistan.<br>Evidentemente, non incontrò Talebani sul suo cammino.<br><br>PPSS <br>Ma i Talebani devono averlo letto prima di distruggere i due giganteschi buddha di Bamiyan; di loro Byron dice che si tratta di <i>arte stantia...rivoltante...priva di bellezza...Nessuno dei due possiede alcun valore artistico... e nemmeno la dignità del lavoro...</i><br>Farli esplodere è stato un gesto artistico ispirato da Byron?<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1506841795i/24057538.jpg" width="400" height="315" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>I Talebani distruggono le statue di Buddha a Bamiyan.</b>

<b>”Baalbek is the triumph of stone; of lapidary magnificence on a scale whose language, being still the language of the eye, dwarfs New York into a home of ants. The stone is peach-coloured, and is marked in ruddy gold as the columns of St. Martin-in-the-fields are marked in soot. It has a marmoreal texture, not transparent, but faintly powdered, like bloom on a plum. <br><br>Dawn is the time to see it, to look up at the Six Columns, when peach-gold and blue air shine with equal radiance, and even the empty bases that uphold no columns have a living, sunblest identity against the violet deeps of the firmament. <br><br>Look up, look up; up this quarried flesh, these thrice-enormous shafts, to the broken capitals and the cornice as big as a house, all floating in the blue. Look over the walls, to the green groves of white-stemmed poplars; and over them to the distant Lebanon, a shimmer of mauve and blue and gold and rose. Look along the mountains to the void: the desert, that stony, empty sea. Drink the high air. Stroke the stone with your own soft hands. Say goodbye to the West if you own it. And then turn, tourist, to the East.”</b><br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/RobertByronspassport_zps47a4705f.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1534105190i/26118304.jpg" alt=" photo RobertByronspassport_zps47a4705f.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><b>Robert Byron’s passport.</b><br><br>Robert Byron took a ten month journey through the Middle East during the years 1933-34. He took a ship to Cyprus then travelled through Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. His journey ended in Peshawar, India (now part of Pakistan). This book is considered by many travel writers to be the first great piece of travel writing. Bryon was a great advocate of ancient architecture and worked feverishly during his short life to try and insure that as much of it was preserved as possible. He gets rather rapturous when describing a column, or an arch or a minaret. <br><br><i>”The beauty of Isfahan steals on the mind unawares. You drive about, under avenues of white tree-trunks and canopies of shining twigs; past domes of turquoise and spring yellow in a sky of liquid violet-blue, along the river patched with twisting shoals, catching that blue in its muddy silver, and lined with feather groves where the sap calls; across bridges of pale toffee brick, tier on tier of arches breaking into piled pavilions; overlooked by lilac mountains, by the Kuh-i-Sufi shaped like Punch’s hump and by other ranges receding to a line of snowy surf; and before you know how, Isfahan has become indelible, has insinuated its image into that gallery of places which everyone privately treasures.” </i><br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/FridayMosque2_zps14895e22.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1534105190i/26118305.jpg" alt=" photo FridayMosque2_zps14895e22.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><b>Friday Mosque in the city of Isfahan, Esfahan Province, Iran. Photograph by Robert Byron.</b><br><br>Isfahan was located in Persia when Byron was there... now Iran. <br><br>Bryon travels by any means possible by truck, bus, camel, horses, asses, and by foot. He even at two different times buys an automobile out of desperation to continue to reach destinations. He suffers thirst, the smell of a fresh dung heap that resides next to the stables he is bunked in, cold, heat, and the constant frustration of officials unwilling to give him travel permits to see sights he must see. He is arrested at least twice for travelling without proper documentation. <br><br>Bruce Chatwin refers to this book as <i>"a sacred text, beyond criticism,"</i> which attests to the influence the book had on his writing and his choice of career. Chatwin always carried a copy with him and reading Chatwin is how I first discovered the existence of Robert Byron. I did develop a literary intimacy with Byron while reading this book and could think of myself as waiting anxiously for his next letter describing the wonders of what he has seen. The book reads like dispatches from a close friend, but that illusion is sometimes broken when there seems to be information missing that is the type of intimate understanding assumed between friends. His style is jocular and laced with boyish enthusiasm. <br><br><b>I found the book charming. </b><br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/NancyMitford_zpsae795aff.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1534105190i/26118307._SY540_.jpg" alt=" photo NancyMitford_zpsae795aff.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><b>Nancy Mitford had hopes, had hopes. *Sigh* isn’t it always the case that everyone is in love with the wrong person.</b><br><br>Byron was close friends with Nancy Mitford and at one point she had hoped he would propose marriage. She was later astonished as well as shocked to discover his homosexual tastes, complaining: <b>"This wretched pederasty falsifies all feelings and yet one is supposed to revere it."</b> Unfortunately for Nancy, Byron was in love with <i>“Desmond Parsons, younger brother of the 6th Earl of Rosse, who was regarded as one of the most magnetic men of his generation. They lived together in Peking, in 1934, where Desmond developed Hodgkin’s Disease, of which he died in Zurich, in 1937, when only 26 years old. Robert was left utterly devastated.”</i> Byron’s passion for Parsons was never reciprocated. <br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/81ef1b41-820f-42db-a726-42fc35e4dd85_zpsf05c3a19.png.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1534105190i/26118306.png" alt=" photo 81ef1b41-820f-42db-a726-42fc35e4dd85_zpsf05c3a19.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><b>Desmond Parsons and Lord Snowden at the London wedding of Princess Margaret</b><br><br>As a precaution on the trip Byron must change the name of the Shah in his diary in case it is confiscated. This is the conversation he had with his travelling companion, Christopher Sykes, regarding naming dictators. <br><br><i>”’Sh. You mustn’t mention the Shah out loud. Call him Mr. Smith.’<br><br>‘I always call Mussolini Mr. Smith in Italy.’<br><br>‘Well, Mr. Brown.’<br><br>‘No, that’s Stalin’s name in Russia.’<br><br>‘Mr. Jones then.’<br><br>‘Jones is no good either. Hitler has to have it now that Primo de Rivera is dead. And anyhow I get confused with these ordinary names. We had better call him Marjoribanks, if we want to remember whom we mean.’”</i><br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/muhammad-nadir-shah_zps69743e0b.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1534105190i/26118303._SY540_.jpg" alt=" photo muhammad-nadir-shah_zps69743e0b.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><b>Muhammad Nadir, the shah or otherwise known as Marjoribanks.</b><br><br>Byron does read on this trip. Early on he is reading Boswell. <i>”I spread my own bedding, dined off some egg, sausage, cheese, and whisky, read a little Boswell, and fell fast asleep among the aromatic herbs with my money-bags between my feet and my big hunting knife unclasped in my fist.”</i><br><br>They were stranded in an unfortunate section of road full of bandits and thieves thus the knife kept readily to hand. <br><br>I know I have many friends who have read Proust in the last year, as have I, so it was a special treat when he makes mention of the influence Proust is having on his writing. <br><br><i>”I have been reading Proust for the last three days (and begin to observe the infection of uncontrolled detail creeping into my diary). His description of how the name <b>Guermantes</b> hypnotized him reminds me of how the name <b>Turkestan</b> has hypnotized me.”</i><br><br>Byron’s influence on travel writing can not be denied. I have a good friend who writes travel articles for a living and he considers this book to be one of the most influential books that turned him to travelling for a living. I have been remiss for at least a decade in not reading this book sooner, as my friend has frequently reminded me. I enjoyed the unexpected humor and the grand, enthusiastic descriptions of places that Byron found so inspiring. It is always so shocking to discover that someone is dead who seemed so alive. <i>Byron died in 1941 at age 35 when the ship he was travelling on, the SS Jonathan Holt, was torpedoed by U-97 a Type VIIC submarine in the North Atlantic. His body was never found.</i> <br><br><b>May you rest in peace fair traveler.</b> <br><br>If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.jeffreykeeten.com">http://www.jeffreykeeten.com</a><br>I also have a Facebook blogger page at: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten">https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten</a>

Essential reading. In fact, this was such a fresh conception of the travel-amid-ruins-cum-history-cum-memoir that it has served as a model for <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Bruce%20Chatwin" title="Bruce Chatwin" rel="noopener">Bruce Chatwin</a>, <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Patrick%20Leigh%20Fermor" title="Patrick Leigh Fermor" rel="noopener">Patrick Leigh Fermor</a>, <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Pico%20Iyer" title="Pico Iyer" rel="noopener">Pico Iyer</a>, <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Peter%20Matthiessen" title="Peter Matthiessen" rel="noopener">Peter Matthiessen</a>, <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Jan%20Morris" title="Jan Morris" rel="noopener">Jan Morris</a> and other writers over the years. It contains a great many references to Persian and some Afghan antiquities, many of which author Byron photographed on his 1933 excursion. I was thrilled to read about these antiquities. That pleasure was made keener by the linked and annotated version of the text which is available on Google Play books. What a relief it is not to have to repeatedly enter funny spellings for the necessary background information, without which I would have found the text unreadable. Byron's original B/W photographs are available through the ebook's links as are many more current images, <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Dome_wall_and_windows_of_the_Sheikh_Lotf_Allah_Mosque.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener">like this one of the Sheikh Lotf-Allah Mosque's interior.</a> The author does show us something about the architectural styles of each of the regions' successive empires—Elamite, Achaemenid, Timurid, Ghaznavid, Seljuk, ad infinitum. Very interesting stuff, often witty, too, explicating an area of Eastern architectural history until now unknown to me. True, Byron at times delivers sneering critiques, a form of old school connoisseurship, as when the reliefs at Persepolis aren't pretty enough to suit him, or when the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan" rel="nofollow noopener">Buddhas of Bamiyan</a> are roundly deprecated as "lacking any pride in their monstrous flaccid bulk." (p.271) Need I remind the reader of the international outcry that ensued when these buddhas were desecrated by the Taliban in 2001? Small-minded connoisseurship again, I'm afraid. It's the book's only flaw. <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> reminds me of V.S. Naipaul's Iran book, <a href="https://goodreads.com/search/search?q=Among%20the%20Believers" title="Among the Believers" rel="noopener">Among the Believers</a>, though his focus was on Islam among the non-Arab peoples, both books share a certain view of the Persian character. Author Byron's intrepidity is also worth noting, too, especially when he travels to Firuzabad in southern Iran, accompanied by a squad of the Shah's policemen—ostensibly in attendance to fend off bandits—just so he can photograph and closely describe the local antiquities. The travel is unbelievably arduous at times. Something like three or four cars are totaled during the journey. As for the lodgings, well, vermin-ridden would be putting it too kindly. Vivid, highly learned and jauntily written.

2.5 stars<br />This book and its writer are a bit of an enigma and I found myself liking and disliking Robert Byron in equal measure. The Road to Oxiana tells of a journey Byron made with Christopher Sykes to explore the architecture of what is now Iran and Afghanistan. If you want well written descriptions of Islamic architecture then Byron is your man; illustrated below;<br />“I have never encountered splendour of this kind before. Other interiors came into my mind as I stood there, to compare it with: Versailles, or the porcelain rooms at Schönbrunn, or the Doge's Palace, or St Peter's. All are rich; but none so rich. Their richness is three-dimensional; it is attended by all the effort of shadow: In the Mosque of Sheikh Lutfullah, it is a richness of light and surface, of pattern and colour only. The architectural form is unimportant. It is not smothered, as in rococo; it is simply the instrument of a spectacle, as earth is the instrument of a garden. And then I suddenly thought of that unfortunate species, modern interior decorators, who imagine they can make a restaurant, or a cinema, or a plutocrat's drawing-room look rich if given money enough for gold leaf and looking-glass. They little know what amateurs they are. Nor, alas, do their clients”<br />Byron was a fairly typical product of the English public school system. A snob and an aesthete with some strong opinions; he hated western art and was a champion of El Greco and he once famously described Shakespeare’s plays as “exactly the sort of thing a grocer would write”. Byron survived the era of the Bright Young Things and grew up to oppose Nazism and fascism. Having been a good friend of Evelyn Waugh, they became estranged. On Byron’s death in 1941 (he was on a boat that was torpedoed) Waugh said;<br />"It is not yet the time to say so but I greatly disliked Robert in his last years &amp; think he was a dangerous lunatic better off dead."<br />Byron was a little too left leaning for Waugh.<br />Byron is a relatively detached narrator who mostly ignores the obvious dangers his party were often in and there is an amused acceptance of the hardships. His writing about architecture appears to be first rate, but he is not a good observer of people and nor does he appear very interested in them. There is the arrogance of the travelling Englishman who is apt to treat anyone as a servant. <br />There are some quirks in the book. It is in diary form and there were sensitivities about talking about the Shah in Iran and so he is referred to as Marjoribanks throughout. There was a poignancy in the travels in Afghanistan as the names mentioned are well known names in today’s context, for very different reasons. This is a very male book. The women are anonymous and absent. It is also possible to see the fault lines that are much sharper today and of course it is illuminated by western arrogance. Byron was an Eton and Oxford man; as is our current prime minister. Byron’s ideas come from Spengler and Clive Bell and if you want to read a travel book from the 1930s then read Patrick Leigh Fermor. However Byron does write about Islamic architecture very well, at a time when it was not fashionable to do so

Mash-up : <i>The Rough Guide to the Middle East</i> with <i>Brideshead Revisited</i>, the whole thing written up by that saucy boy Anthony Blanche. I did immoderately love flamboyant young Anthony up to no good in the louche bars of Oxford but when he morphs into Robert Byron and swans around sneering at Johnny Foreigner then it does get a bit too too :<br /><br /><i>I went to swim at the YMCA opposite the hotel. This necessitated paying two shillings [and] changing among a lot of hairy dwarves who smelt of garlic.</i><br /><br />This is Anthony to the very letter!<br /><br /><i>At the turnstile, that final outrage, a palsied dotard took ten minutes to write out each ticket. After which we escaped from these trivialities into the glory of Antiquity.</i><br /><br />On Baghdad:<br /><br /><i>When the temperature drops below 110 the residents complain of the chill and get out their furs. For only one thing is it now justly famous : a kind of boil which takes nine months to heal, and leaves a scar.</i><br /><br />Paul Fussell, a heavyweight if ever there was one, wrote in 1982 that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." And Bruce Chatwin wanted to get his copy surgically implanted into a cavity in his sacroiliac so he would never be parted. <br /><br />It kind of depends on whether you throb with love-gushes as you read such passages as<br /><br /><i>While the cadent sun throws lurid copper streaks across the sand-blown sky, all the birds in Persia have gathered for a last chorus. Slowly, the darkness brings silence, and they settle themselves to sleep with diminishing flutterings, as of a child arranging its bedclothes. And then another note begins, a hot metallic blue note, timidly at first, gaining courage, throbbing without cease, until, as if the second violins had crept into action, it becomes two notes, now this, now that, and is answered from the other side of the pool by a third. Mahun is famous for its nightingales. But for my part I celebrate the frogs.</i><br /><br />or<br /><br /><i>I have never encountered splendour of this kind before. Other interiors came into my mind as I stood there, to compare it with: Versailles, or the porcelain rooms at Schönbrunn, or the Doge's Palace, or St Peter's. All are rich; but none so rich. Their richness is three-dimensional; it is attended by all the effort of shadow: In the Mosque of Sheikh Lutfullah, it is a richness of light and surface, of pattern and colour only. The architectural form is unimportant. It is not smothered, as in rococo; it is simply the instrument of a spectacle, as earth is the instrument of a garden. And then I suddenly thought of that unfortunate species, modern interior decorators, who imagine they can make a restaurant, or a cinema, or a plutocrat's drawing-room look rich if given money enough for gold leaf and looking-glass. They little know what amateurs they are. Nor, alas, do their clients.</i><br /><br />Me, I’m such a pleb I kind of go yeah, yeah yeah in that irritating know-it-all tone you know so well by now. I discovered I was utterly uninterested in what Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan looked like in 1932. I realised I had wandered into the wrong book by mistake. We all do that sometimes. Oops, sorry! (Close door hurriedly, face flushing madly.) The trick is to get out as quickly as possible whilst maintaining a shred of dignity. It wasn’t too hard, since I found that this book consists of sneery remarks describing how Robert gets from A to B, and what frightful but sort of delicious indignities he has to put up with; plus a lot of pure-gold comedy vignettes where he recounts conversations with amusing foreign dignitaries or station porters. It's all not a little self-congratulatory, which may be my problem with the whole genre of travel writing. <br /><br />Here is an example of Robert at his most Byronesque from p 96. RB is on a bus to Meshed and a brouhaha erupts when the driver tries to collect fares. The guy sitting next to RB is involved, gets thrown off the bus but then is allowed back on.<br /><br /><i>The Pharisee sought his old place in front, by me. But now it was my turn to go mad. I would not have him near me, I said. In reply, he seized my hand, and pressing it to his prickly, saliva-trickling beard, sprayed it with kisses. A shove sent him sprawling, while I leapt out on the other side, declaring to the now befogged, exhausted and unhappy driver that rather than suffer further contact with the man, I would walk into Meshed on my own feet and keep what I owed him in my pocket.</i><br /><br />I had decided to skip all the purply prose rhapsodies about architecture and just read the lofty insults but eventually these paled as pale as the moonlight above Turkmenistan. I parted from Mr Byron on rather frosty terms between Teheran and Kum. It was a Thursday and a donkey was chewing my ear off.<br />

After marking at least two dozen paragraphs to quote from, I gave up. Robert Byron is a writer who has at least one extremely funny wisecrack per page except when he is describing yet another dome, minaret or entrance gate with such intensity and long breath that you get bored after the description of the fiftieth monument. What makes this travelodge from 1933 so exceptional is that he travels through Iraq, Persia and Afghanistan, thus regions which are now quite impossible to travel through and which are probably lost for us to see for a very long time, if not forever. He starts out from Jerusalem and there are some pages on Palestine under British rule where he has some really deadly things to say about the idiocy of British burocracy at the time. Byron is a very daring traveller indeed. He does not mind to sleep in sheds next to a pile of camel dung, but he takes it also for granted to be celebrated by the local lords or British consuls with lots of exquisite food and wine. Very enjoyable book. I can fully understand that it was the favorite guide for Bruce Chatwin. I imagine when Chatwin needed his spirit lifted, he could just read a few pages and his mood would improve instantly!

I am not sure I would have liked Robert Byron, him being pretentious and self-conscious bordering the pompous, I would probably have kept a distance at dinner parties. <br />But, I would have listened in and smiled at his adventures in Persia and Afghanistan.<br /> <br />“It is the journey, not the destination”, and then again, so many destinations that I would love to go to, though in different company.<br />When he is at his best, he is the keen observer, enriching his observations with historical facts and never shy to ask around for more facts. He can convey to the reader the scents and colors of flowers ad grass and the felling of the rain pouring down. This is what makes a travel writer great and fit to enter the travel writer´s hall of fame.<br /><br />In “The Road To Oxiana” the journey goes through Persia and Afghanistan. Robert Byron never actually gets his feet wet in the River Oxus/Amu Darja, it being too close to the borders for access, but on his way, he sees all the wonders of the area, some worth seeing – and quite a few not to his taste. <br /><br />Travelling by car, lorry, train, on horseback or on mule or camel, all has its charms – and challenges – but the travel tale is never about hardship or dangers, though naturally a hint of dissatisfaction occasionally shines through, e.g. when your car is impaled on a rock hidden in a riverbed. <br />It most certainly was not such a pleasure ride as the lack of high pitched exclamations suggest. 10 months on the road, met by local bureaucracy, unobtainable permits, bedbugs and mosquitos must have taken its toll. Bad roads, bad weather, constant change of transport means would drive most people crazy. <br /><br />But focus is set on the monuments, the architecture and the people.<br /><br />I like that a lot, that is my own way of traveling and I have enjoyed the trip.<br />I have been revisiting places in Iran that I have seen, smiling at little things that apparently did not change in 80 years and mourning all the places I never had the chance to see.<br /><br />When I years ago went Transoxania into now Uzbekistan, I regrettably had only little knowledge of the interchange between Uzbek and Persian architecture. If I had met Robert Byron at an earlier stage in my travel life I would have been able to seek out the influence of Queen Goharshad Begum who was a great patroness of architecture and art in the area during the fist half of the 15th century.<br /><br />When I return to Iran I will make sure to take a copy with me to guide me to all the forgotten treasures. <br />If anyone should ask, Afghanistan is on my bucket list too.

This 1937 novel is revolutionary. An incredible true account of Byron’s journey through the Middle East, this must be the epitome of travel literature.<br /><br />An Oxford graduate, but certainly not of the typical Oxford mould, Byron was an unusual character – part nomad, semi historian, he had a clear sense of adventure and an inexhaustive curiosity for the big wide world. This novel depicts, from his own personal experience his step by step perilous travels through what is now modern day Iran and Afghanistan. Granted, these countries were politically and socially very different at the time of Byron’s journey – i.e. the absence of nuclear programs and Al Qaeda, however they were still largely unknown and dangerous destinations. <br /><br />Accompanied by his friend Christopher Sykes, Byron set out for Oxiana (northern border of Afghanistan) via Jerusalem, Damascus and Baghdad, with the aim of tracing the origins of Islamic architecture. It took him eleven months. His experiences are documented candidly, mixing journal entries, snippets of conversation, bizarre events and the triumphs and challenges he faced along the way. Amazingly it doesn’t seem dated, even though there is no mention of blogging, instagramming or lonely planet, it is as readable and relatable as a piece of travel literature today as it was back then. He is humourous, able to roll with the punches day to day – he sees the upside in difficulties and more than anything, he is able to communicate a strong sense of collective humanity. He treats all he meets as equals. Despite his satirical tone, the parody of some of his tales and a good dose of hyperbole, it is clear he was no toffy Oxford snob.<br /><br />Byron sets off from Venice, describing it as “water like hot saliva, cigar ends floating into one’s mouth, and shoals of jellyfish….” Once joined by Christopher, their real journey commences. The point of Byron’s journey was of course to study Islamic architecture – and marvel at it he does, remarking on mosques “their richness is three-dimensional; it is attended by all the effort of shadow: in the mosque of Sheikh Lutfullah, it is a richness of light and surface, of pattern and colour only. The architectural form is unimportant. It is not smothered, as in rococo; it is simply the instrument of a spectacle, as earth is the instrument of a garden.”<br /><br />Amazingly, Byron is consistently unperturbed by the inclement dangers and perils of their trip – Christopher on the other hand is much more cautious. For instance, in Persia, when Byron insults the shah out loud, Christopher diplomatically suggests they begin to refer to him privately as “Mr Smith” but eventually agree that “Marjoribanks” is much more suitable! Rebuking danger, Byron also disguised himself by blackening his face with charcoal so he could enter a forbidden mosque, and persisted on taking the nail bitingly treacherous route from Herat to Mazar – i – Sharif (as dangerous then as it is nowadays being Taliban and Al Qaeda territory!), the first Englishman to do so. <br /><br />Unfortunately, Byron did not make is beyond Afghanistan, ending up in Kabul after all sorts of escapades and near death experiences. Of course, after all this eastern excitement, returning to England seemed rather drab and uninspiring, and Byron did indeed keep traveling and getting into trouble, and thankfully, writing about it. Ultimately, this is the quintessential travel tome. No Lonely Planet or In Patagonia or Short Walk in the Hindu Kush can come close...Why? because this was so, so far ahead of its time and is a journey to a regional that was dangerous then, but much more so now – basically inaccessible due to civil war, terrorism and foreign occupation. Sadly ,much of the splendour Byron saw in these countries - the formidable tribes, the exquisite architecture, the rich history, culture and customs....no longer even exists. Without ever knowing it, he managed to capture a lost time, a lost place, a lost people. <br /><br />“What I have seen she taught me to see,” he writes, “and will tell me if I have honoured it.” For all you fellow wanderers, nomads and restless souls, this book is one to make sure you have space for in the over head luggage compartment!<br />

Almost 90 years ago, Robert Byron, a distant relative of the much better known British literary figure with the same surname, being a recent graduate of the Univ. of Oxford &amp; having little or nothing in his life to occupy his attention, decides to head off in the direction of Afghanistan, then as now a rather fractious &amp; unpredictable landscape for travelers. Byron proceeds via Jerusalem &amp; the Middle East, transiting Baghdad &amp; Tehran with a traveling companion named Christopher, devising a shifting mix of conveyances, including donkeys, carts, horses, camels, buses, cars of varying utility &amp; an occasional train. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628024287i/31727503.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Byron was from privileged circumstances that had been largely diminished by the time he left Oxford with less than a first class degree &amp; his travels were occasionally spartan in nature but he never ceased to part company with his copies of Boswell, Proust &amp; Thucydides, retaining his upper-crust British airs, while not making much of an attempt to delve into local customs or the language of the area he traversed. <br><br>In fact, to read <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> is to be reintroduced to British snobbery, intolerance &amp; incivility of a time &amp; place when Great Britain ruled its vast empire without much thought to it ever being dismantled. Byron seems dismissive not just of Jews but of Turks, Persians, Syrians &amp; even fellow British travelers, many of whom he mocks in a most unflattering manner.<blockquote>A man looking like a decayed railway porter--as most Persians do under the present sumptuary laws--joined us at the mosque. We dined with a man named Hannibal, who is descended, like Pushkin, from the Peter the Great's negro and is certainly cousin to certain British royalties. Also present was a Jewish revisionist leader, part of an extreme party that wants England to set up a Jewish state. I don't know how long they think the Arabs would suffer a single Jew to exist once the English went.</blockquote><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628024287i/31727504._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy">Robert Byron displays a keen enthusiasm for architecture but even in appraising a structure that pleases him, he often suggests that...<blockquote>Certainly, this is façade-architecture: the prototype of the Taj &amp; a hundred other shrines. It breathes power &amp; content, while its offspring achieve only scenic refinement. It has the audacity of true invention; the graces are sacrificed to the idea &amp; the result, imperfect as it may be, represents the triumph of the idea over technical limitations. Much great architecture is of this kind.<img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628024287i/31727505._SY540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </blockquote>The author is particularly fascinated by Persian wind towers but most buildings are described as "perfunctory" or of a "confused style". However, Byron can also be uplifted by what he sees, as with the Tomb of Tamerlane at Samarkand, first seen at dusk, causing the author to go to bed "like a child on Christmas Eve, scarcely able to wait till morning...<blockquote>when 7 sky-blue pillars are revealed, rising out of bare fields against heather-coated mountains, with each enshrouded in a highlight of pure gold at dawn, with every tile, every flower, every petal of the mosaic contributing its genius to the whole. Even in ruin, such architecture speaks of a golden age. Has history already forgotten it?</blockquote>Meanwhile, the language is often vernacular or oddly colloquial but then quickly drifts to a far more formal style especially when detailing architecture. Still, his descriptions are seldom anything except caustic, as with those in a bazaar who he views as "hawk-eyed &amp; eagle-beaked, with the swarthy, loose-knit men swinging through the dark bazaar with a devil-may-care attitude, carrying rifles while shopping as Londoners carry umbrellas". <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628024287i/31727506._SY540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>To be sure, travel to this part of the world prior to cell phones, ATM cards, soft-sided luggage on wheels &amp; other conveniences was seldom a joy, no matter the crumbling monuments to be revealed along the way, as when "mosquitoes the size of eagles swarm overhead and diarrhea turned to dysentery, forcing us to retreat to Meshed &amp; safety." At this point, Byron comments that he "was never so glad to see its domes &amp; the fascinating congeries of mosques, mausoleums, bazaars &amp; labyrinths, an intricate but unbeautiful mosaic." <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628025339i/31727593._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>The preface to <i>The Road to Oxiana</i> by Rory Stewart &amp; the introduction by Paul Fussell are both excellent and shine a helpfully revealing light on the background of Robert Byron. Stewart tells the reader that Byron's approach to travel writing includes "irreverence, slanderous innuendo, ludicrous analogies, showy erudition, neurosis, snobbery, aesthetic obsessions &amp; infuriating charm which might seem more appropriate for a Mayfair ball." That quite aptly captures it! Stewart goes on to say that at his best Byron's outlook is less like Evelyn Waugh &amp; more like his Eton contemporary, George Orwell. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628024287i/31727507._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Fussell meanwhile comments that Robert Byron seemed incapable of a "continuous, seemless narration", even though he worked on the manuscript for 3 years. Instead, we have a "most heterogeneous rhetorical mix, like elements of a collage", including newspaper clippings, public signs,official forms, letters, diary entries, essays on current politics, lyrical passages, updates on delays &amp; near disasters + "archeological dissertations" and what Fussell feels is the great strength of the book, the comic dialogues, complete with stage directions &amp; even musical scoring, all almost like discovering "a museum piece presided over by a benign if very eccentric curator."<br><br>Here is just one sample from a camp within Afghanistan:<blockquote>"Where is your kibitka", they asked. "My what?" "Your kibitka?" "I don't understand." With expressions of contempt &amp; irritation, they pointed to their own felt &amp; wattle huts: "Your kibitka--you must have a kibitka. Where is it?" "In Inglistan." "Where is that?" "In Hindostan." "Is that in Russia?" "Yes."</blockquote>To be fair, I enjoyed much of Robert Byron's rather chaotic travel book but often, it seemed that rather than attempting to draw the reader in, he endeavored instead to keep the reader at a distance from the experiences he was in the process of relating. It was a pleasant experience to be taken by the author to Yadz, Isfahan &amp; Persepolis in Iran (places I have visited), as well as outposts in Afghanistan such as Bamiyan, with its now destroyed huge, inset Buddhas, locations that I will only come to know through books like <i>The Road to Oxiana</i>. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1628031015i/31727837._SX540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Sadly, Robert Byron, who also had a gift for sketching scenes &amp; people he encountered, perished at age 36 when his ship was struck by a German torpedo in 1941, while en route to a posting in North Africa. *Among my photo images are two of the author, Robert Byron, + images of people &amp; sites, including Bamiyan in Afghanistan, which he was able to explore while in quest of the river Oxus or Oxiana, a dividing point between Afghanistan &amp; the former USSR.

I'm always on the lookout for a good travel book and this is supposed to be a travel classic written in the 1930s. It is an account of the author's travels from the Middle East to Central Asia.<br /><br />Well,it has made me wary of the very term "travel classic". It didn't help that I especially ordered it online and had it airlifted all the way from Karachi. That made it hard to throw in the trash can.<br /><br />It is the diary of an Englishman from colonial times,so it has the colonial mindset,and casual racism. That in itself is off-putting enough.<br /><br />But what makes it worse are those detailed,over elaborate descriptions of the architecture of the places visited by him. The prose is needlessly flowery. I prefer my travel writing to be more straightforward.<br />Made me yawn and want to toss the book aside.<br /><br />Not recommended,even if one reviewer describes it as "the greatest travel book ever written" !