To a Mountain in Tibet

I'm not usually one to go in for gushing reviews, but sometimes something comes along that is so good that I just can't help myself. One such artefact is Colin Thubron's To a Mountain in Tibet.

There are always good reasons to read Thubron's books: the beautifully balanced and poised prose, the colourful imagery, the historical and philosophical depth, and the insights into half-hidden cultures. As ever, this book is full of lovely writing - by turns vivid, fluent and spare, and, in this book at least, pretty austere (like much of the rocky scenery). But the spareness of the writing embodies the richest of philosophical/religious pictures, as befits a book about a journey to a mountain that is sacred to about a fifth of the planet's population, and the intricacies of Buddhist and Hindu belief unfold along the stony trackways and in the gloom of remote monasteries, where candles gutter and monks old and young struggle to find a shared language to make themselves understood amid the shadowed statues and prayer flags. 

If Thubron was a craftsman, he'd be creating Faberge eggs, or delicate friezes of wooden fretwork, or Grinling Gibbons-type carvings; but the style is never just for its own sake - it's there to act as the vehicle for the story/the journey.

As well as the usual fine writing, there's an emotional edge to this journey: the recent death of Thubron's mother and, it becomes apparent, the ghost of his long-dead sister. Their stories intertwine with the narrative of the journey through Nepal and Tibet and on the approach to the holy mountain. As the journey progresses, the spiritual allusions blend with the descriptions of the scenery, and to the dozens of deities and demons that haunt the landscape for believers. 

These different elements all intertwine, and you feel as if you are circling the beliefs just as the pilgrimage path circles Mount Kailas; the spiritual journey echoes the physical trek, sliding in and out of focus as you move closer towards some kind of truth. The  threads are all drawn together skilfully in the concluding pages, and the climax of the journey takes place on the high slopes of the mountain, above 18,000 feet, amid tired, happy pilgrims who have completed their circuit. If you read the final section of this book and remain unmoved, you should probably make an appointment with your cardiologist and get them to check whether your heart has been removed.

Highly recommended.