Critics such as the travel writer Alexander Frater have noted that while the book is held in extremely high esteem, [b] and is enjoyably comic, [30] [31] it is not nearly as well-written as his later autobiographical book, Love and War in the Apennines (1971), a judgement in which Newby concurred. [29] [32] [33] [34] 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] Meeting Carless, they drive across Turkey to Persia (present day Iran). They brake to an emergency stop on the road, just short of a dying nomad, and with difficulty convince the police they did not cause the death. Apparently this place belongs to a Nuristani general who lives at Kabul," said Hugh as we digested the ghastly meal I had prepared. "Not Ubaidullah Khan." I’m only adding this note because I recently re-encountered that wonderful incident Newby tells against himself where they happen to meet Wilfred Thesiger, the legendary solo explorer of the Middle East; and I’d recently read in Among the Mountains that Thesiger wrote of the same incident (and how very English for the two to meet like that!)

He tells how he and his friend Carless receive brief training in mountaineering technique, on boulders and small cliffs in North Wales. The inn's waitresses are expert climbers; they take Newby and Carless up a difficult climbing route, Ivy Sepulchre [a] on Dinas Cromlech. If the ironic and understated title alone didn’t allude to Newby’s comical approach (a “short” walk), then certainly chapter titles like “Birth of a Salesman” and “Death of a Salesman” would. The book has an “idiot abroad” feel, a travelogue of two bumbling foreigners who somehow get into awkward and improbable situations like getting hit on by a mechanic, dropping a pristine Rolex watch into a cauldron of boiling food, and, you know, attempting to climb a 6,000-meter mountain peak in the Hindu Kush. 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. 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.From then on he and his wife lived in London. He spent the next 10 years as executive vice-chairman of the philanthropic Hinduja Foundation and as vice-chairman of the South Atlantic Council. From 1994 until 1996, Carless chaired the influential series of Argentine-British Conferences which helped to reinstate full diplomatic relations between the two countries after the Falklands war. One of the greatest travel classics from one of Britain's best-loved travel writers, this edition includes new photographs, an epilogue from Newby's travelling companion, Hugh Carless, and a prologue from one of Newby's greatest proponents, Evelyn Waugh. But then there maybe just those such as Newby who do find a permanent sense of wonderment in the world we inhabit. That is why we read their travel writing, to get that sense of amazement and bewilderment about the world that once was, is now and maybe even what could be the future.

I had searched the internet for the best travel book ever and this book showed up on almost every list. How good can a book about two guy hiking up a mountain be? Well, I found out; fantastic, mind blowing great. Thesiger invited them for a meal and to spend the night in his company. They were rather overawed and wondered what Thesiger thought of them, being so callow and inexperienced. They found out when they unrolled their mattress pads: Thesiger, who probably just hollowed-out a depression in the gravel to sleep, observed contemptuously, “God, you must be a couple of pansies”. urn:oclc:867469805 Republisher_date 20120831082856 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120825044406 Scanner scribe1.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) Shapiro, Michael (15 May 2006). "No. 17: 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' by Eric Newby". WorldHum . Retrieved 20 February 2018. I read A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush through its inclusion in the 2022 Year of Reading blind subscription from the English language bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France.

Preview Book

There are two hand-drawn maps. The "Map to illustrate a journey in Nuristan by Eric Newby and Hugh Carless in 1956", shows an area of 75 × 55 miles covering the Panjshir valley to the Northwest, and Nuristan and the Pushal valley to the Southeast; it has a small inset of Central Asia showing the area's location to the Northeast of Kabul. The other map, "Nuristan", covers a larger area of about 185 × 140 miles, showing Kabul and Jalalabad to the South, and Chitral and the Pakistan region of Kohistan to the East. [10] Preface [ edit ] Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL7347524M Openlibrary_edition Shapiro, Michael (2004). "Eric Newby: Through Love and War". Travelers' Tales. Archived from the original on 13 March 2013 . Retrieved 4 April 2013. Newby writes in short straight clear prose with wry, witty self-depreciating humor delivered with impeccable timing. Time and time again he left me ROFL.

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. 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. Waldmann, Greg (1 July 2016). "From the Archives: Summer Reading 2015 – Cool Reads". Open Letters Monthly | An Arts and Literature Review . Retrieved 20 February 2018.a b Chwascinski, Boleslaw (1966). "The Exploration of the Hindu Kush" (PDF). Alpine Journal: 199–214. A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” established him as a traveler who not only journeyed fruitfully but had the ability to bring his readers with him' William Trevor, Guardian I especially enjoyed reading about some of the small villages they passed through that were practically idyllic at that time and are probably rubble today.