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Article: The Lost Heart of Asia.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There are travellers who write and writers who travel. Between them Lies a river of reality. Colin Thubron belongs to the second class. He is no Thessiger or Post. He has an excellent mixture as before which teases out into gobbets of history and chats with the natives, heavily larded with epithet and adjective of which he has a large and original variety; and uses deftly. But like an over rich cake, scintillation can sicken and so die like gorgeous palaces of the 'Tempest'. There is a certain egoism which informs us that his first book was written in a monastery; the second in a brothel. For travel books he needs the conscious eccentricity of Holland Park, within reach of ...