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| The Road to Oxiana | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Byron
Creators: Rory Stewart, Paul Fussell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 59370
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 0195325605
Dewey Decimal Number: 955
EAN: 9780195325607
ASIN: 0195325605
Publication Date: May 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-6 of 6 | | « PREV | | |
 Finish this book and win the Nobel prize for persistence October 6, 2007
8 out of 31 found this review helpful
In the early to mid 1930s, Robert Byron traveled to Venice, Beirut, Palestine and finally to Iran and Afghanistan for 10 months with his companion, Christopher Sykes. Oxiana is an area in Afghanistan south of the Russian border around the Oxus river which is now called Amu Darya.
Byron's "The Road to Oxiana" became the magnificently boring and superficial account of his trip, devoid of any emotion, attachment to anything or anyone, including his travel companion whom he rarely mentioned in the book, full of English arrogance and racist remarks about Jews, Persians, Afghans and blacks. Here's what he had to say about Jews he saw at a port in Jerusalem: "Physically, Jews can look the best or the worst bred people in the world. These were the worst. They stank, stared, shoved, and shrieked." He also continuously referred to blacks as negros, but I suppose that was the English norm at the time, so he was generationally prejudiced. Ironically, Byron fiercely denounced Nazi sympathizers following his trip to Nuremberg, but he was still well known for his anti-semitic remarks.
The Road to Oxiana was Byron's second and final attempt at gaining recognition for this trip. His and Sykes' original work on the diary titled "Innocense and Design" in a comic novel format was largely unsuccessful.
If you're a fan of literature with big words and metaphors, you may enjoy this book which was by no means an easy read. I suppose Byron had a knack for describing architecture, and Oxiana changed the genre of travel writing since its publication. For me, it changed nothing as Byron lacked the connection to people and places to engage the readers. His account of interactions with the locals were brief and lacked depth.
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