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A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

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Kari Herbert noted in The Guardian 's list of travel writer's favourite travel books that she had inherited a "well-loved copy" of the book from her father, the English polar explorer Wally Herbert. "Like Newby, I was in a soulless job, desperate for change and adventure. Reading A Short Walk was a revelation. The superbly crafted, eccentric and evocative story of his Afghan travels was like a call to arms." [34] Outside magazine includes A Short Walk among its "25 essential books for the well-read explorer", [39] while Salon.com has the book in its list of "top 10 travel books of the [20th] century". [40] The Daily Telegraph too enjoyed the English humour of the book, including it in a list of favourite travel books, and describing Newby and Carless's meeting with the explorer Wilfred Thesiger as a "hilarious segment". It quotes "We started to blow up our air-beds. 'God, you must be a couple of pansies,' said Thesiger." [41] The Swedish journalist and travel writer Tomas Löfström [ sv] noted that the meeting with Thesiger represented, in Newby's exaggerated account, a collision between two generations of travel writers who travelled, wrote, and related to strangers quite differently. [42] 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. Born and brought up in Barnes, south-west London, Newby was sent to St Paul's school, his middle-class parents, George and Hilda, no doubt intending him for a thoroughly conventional future, perhaps a notch up socially, with a safe, well-paid nine to five job and a Joan Hunter-Dunn marriage. Small indications were noted early that events might turn out otherwise. In the fifth form, he was marked out as a boy who could spot a joke at 20 yards and who revelled in self-ridicule. All his life his humour had the equivalent in music of perfect pitch. Nevertheless, after leaving school at 16, he went to work for the advertising firm, Dorland.

The start of this memoir was particularly fun. We join Newby amid the chaos of his company preparing for an upcoming big fashion show, including usable models of impossible dresses for the runway and catalogues. In the middle of this mayhem, Newby suddenly reports sending a cable to his friend Hugh Carless at his job with the State Department in Rio de Janeiro:. The book comes with a sketchy map, hand-drawn by the author, on which the reader can follow a dotted line marking Newby's route. The map, indeed the entire trek, brings to mind Frodo's quest in Lord of the Rings. Although no orcs or dwarves come bounding out of any of the many caves Newby and Carless pass, their adventure is odd enough, and divorced enough from how we picture the world of 1956, that we would hardly have been surprised. Newby even happens upon a faded inscription carved into stone in an unknown tongue -- strangely reminiscent of Tolkien's elvish runes. Eric Newby must have been aware of the curtain being drawn on mountain adventures in written form, so he structured his book in very different way. Instead of presenting himself and his partner Hugh Carless as mountain conquering heroes, he honestly depicts themselves for what they really were - two self-indulgent clueless men who impose themselves on locals in a poor nation. They are bullying their way to be dragged up steep mountain valleys close to the high point of their fancy - a mountain top they have not a slight chance of reaching. The account of their adventures written in this ironic self-deprecating way is like a breath of fresh air in the oxygen and imagination deprived atmosphere of mountain literature.The book definitely has its humorous moments. He quotes from his Bashgali(Kafir) phrasebook, which turned out to be of questionable usefulness. Through all the shenanigans and crises that ensue, we learn a little about the cultures and geography encountered and very little about the flora and fauna. Newby has nice comic timing for his narrative of events. It did feel like a wonder of heroic foolishness for them to get as far as they got, within 300 feet of the top of the 18,000 foot Mir Shamir. His critical asides can sometimes verge on caricature or stereotype in a way that seem a bit politically incorrect by today’s standards. For example, when he imputes menace or laziness or slovenliness in perception of their treatment or actions by the local people encountered on the journey. But I can see the point of wariness over menace in many cases, and the warmth of his heart in general toward people caught in poverty comes through. Also, he is often the ultimate butt of his humor as the one responsible for the insane quest in the first place and mistakes in first impressions. taken from A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush Hugh Carless, seated, and a pilgrim photographer at the holy city of Meshed (now Mashhad),

Hugh comes across as this mysterious, aloof, travel partner whom Newby is able to portray with gut wrenching humor. Part of the success of the book is how they play off each other. Gutcher, Lianne (5 February 2017). "Following Eric Newby's footsteps in the Hindu Kush". Wanderlust Travel Magazine . Retrieved 20 February 2018. 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 especially enjoyed reading about some of the small villages they passed through that were practically idyllic at that time and are probably rubble today. 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." After a good few years in the printing industry I had had enough. I had been worn down by the daily grind. One day it was actually all too much, and I thought enough was enough! I rang up a mate and his phone went to message bank I blurted something stupid like let’s climb a mountain in the middle of nowhere or or or or! ……..any ideas?

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