Reading List

July 19, 2010

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer.

The author was an Austrian and a mountaineer. More importantly, he was in India when WWII started and was captured by the British and put in a POW camp at the foot of the Himalayas. He escaped three times, and on the third time reached his goal of getting across the mountains to Tibet. All was not well, because he was an uninvited and unwelcome foreigner. The book tells the tale of his agonizing two year trek to get to "The Forbidden City", Lhasa, and how he gained acceptance, prestige and friendship with the "Living God", the Dalia Lama. His adventure ends as the Chinese invade Tibet after WWII.

It is a beautiful story. It is not so much a story of the country describing the landscape, but there is some of that. It is not so much a story of the culture and habits of the nation, but there is a lot of that. More it is a story of the people who live in the country "at the top of the world." After the war, Tibet was still a very old fashioned country, almost medieval, with no improved roads, little electricity, no phones and little contact with the rest of the civilized world. Still, it ws the one place thath Harrer, the author wanted to spend the rest of his life.

In 1997, a movie, Seven Years in Tibet, was produced that was "based on the book". I had seen the movie and liked it, and so when I saw this book on the 501 must read list, I snatched it up. The movie does not do the book justice. It focus more on the Dalia lama and the political, rather than on the true nature of how the religion and government and outlook of the people all merge together in this fascinating county, or should I say what the country used to be. Under China, Tibet has been drug into the modern era and the culture has been changed – not lost, but changed.

I really liked the book. It is not for everyone. As mentioned, it is on the 501 Must Read Book List – and it deserves to be there.