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My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City
Books: Travel: Bhutan: Item 4
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My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden Cityby Alexandra David-Neel
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful: An unusual journey to say the least, January 25, 2004 Reviewer:"karlotta7" (Salem, OR United States) - When I was reading the reviews of this book, I was struck by the one of the reviews. It was very negative, and the reviewer missed the beauty of this book entirely. I was glad that I had already read it. I read the reviews because I was curious to see if others had enjoyed the book as much as I did. I was buying it again as a present for a friend. The author was a very unusual person, and this book is very much worth the read. She wrote about customs and values honestly as she saw them. She was not a dispassionate viewer, but I also felt that she was not judgemental or superior. When customs of two peoples are as different as some of Tibet and France are, they will shock a person and that person will remark. However, I felt that she loved and respected the people she wrote about, and she did a remarkable job in recounting what she saw. She gave her readers the pleasure of a most unusual journey with her and her young companion through a country that was worth writing about.
Product Review
In any time, Alexandra David-Neel would have been considered an extraordinary woman, but in the Victorian era, she was truly exceptional. Born in 1868, David-Neel eschewed the dances, dinners, and formal marriages common to women of her era and social standing in order to indulge her fierce independence and insatiable intellectual curiosity. Her interest in comparative religions dated back to early childhood; even as a student in a Catholic convent school, she kept statues of both Christ and the Buddha in her room. She made her first trip to Asia in 1891, then supported herself as a light-opera singer and journalist before marrying a seemingly conventional man, Philip Neel. Fortunately for both Alexandra David-Neel and for posterity, Philip was less stodgy than his position as a well-off engineer might imply; though he did not accompany her, he supported his wife's explorations and even acted as her literary agent when she began to write about the places she visited. Alexandra and Philip remained the closest of friends until his death in 1941.
David-Neel spent years traveling in India and China, but perhaps her most daring adventure was the trip to Tibet's forbidden city of Lhasa. She was 55 years old at the time, fluent in Tibetan and well versed in both Sanskrit and Buddhism. Disguised as a man, she spent four treacherous months on the road before finally becoming the first European woman ever to enter Lhasa. My Journey to Lhasa is David-Neel's own account of her astounding journey, one fraught with hardship and danger. It is both a chronicle of a bygone time and a testimonial to a remarkable human.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Outside magazine
"David-Neel was indisputably a fearless traveler, a rogue’s rogue. Her account has the power to awe even today."
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