Volume 54, Number 20 · December 20, 2007
The Amazing Wanderer
By Christian Caryl
Shadow of the Silk Road
by Colin Thubron
HarperCollins, 363 pp., $25.95
I could tell you a lot of potentially useful things about Colin Thubron's latest travel memoir—for example, that he's a gifted linguist, a dogged reporter, and an elegant writer. For a start, though, perhaps it's enough to point out that his shoes fell apart in the course of his trip from China to Turkey. And no wonder. The journey covered a total of more than seven thousand miles and took eight months to make (briefly interrupted by a spate of fighting in Afghanistan). The book needs three overlapping maps to do the route justice. No trains, planes,[1] or business-class hotels: for transportation Thubron relies strictly on crowded public buses, the occasional hired taxi, and, of course, his own feet, clothed in 'ancient trainers' that have had it by the end of the road. As for me, I am thrilled to be his traveling companion, if only through the medium of text.
Review, 4018 words
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