Shadow of the Silk Road

Just wrapped up another interesting read, this one called Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron. Actually traveling the famous Silk Road is on my bucket list, so when I spotted the book randomly on the shelf I was instantly drawn to it.

The book is the real-life travelogue of Thubron's trek, traveling westward from China to Turkey.

The wonderful, and challenging, aspect of the book is that it is filled from one end to the other with descriptive language of the landscape, cultures and people that live along the route. Not a single picture is provided, so given the incredibly diverse range of experiences, you really have to paint the scenes in your own mind.

I was fascinated by the number of cultures along the route. Thubron literally encounters dozens of ethnicities, nationalities, religions and languages. I'm a pretty well-read person when it comes to foreign cultures, but Thubron meets up with dozens of peoples that I've never heard of.

Also interesting is that the cultures were only roughly consistent with the political borders along the Silk Road. This quote, from the very end of his journey, brings that point to life, as well as the style and nature of Thubron's writing:

"A few lights are moving above the river. It's time to sleep, but I cannot. Instead I spill my dog-eared maps on to the double bed, and dreamily collate them with my memory. When the hotel lights fuse, I find the last of my candle-stubs, and by this yellow flicker cross again the false and absent frontiers. Even in China, I had come upon the shadowline of the Uighur border far to the east, and all through Central Asia and Afghanistan - a paradise or hell of mingled ethnicities - the nations had interwoven one another. In the shaky candle-flame I remember reaching countries hundreds of miles before their official frontiers, or long after. Often I imagine that the Silk Road itself has created and left behind these blurs and fusions, like the bed of a spent river, and I picture different, ghostly maps laid over the political ones: maps of fractured races and identities."

The journey is difficult in the extreme, and illegal at many junctures due to modern political instability. Most if the travel is on packed buses of questionable safety compliance, and at all points his companions wonder why he is going on such a difficult journey.

My favorite parts were the descriptions of people, the real-life stories of their struggles, victories, histories and realities. How much larger the world really is than we truly realize, where daily subsistence is always in question, even as we go about our lives in full modernity.

The word shadow within the book's title refers to the forgotten prominence of the Silk Road and the many great cities along its path. Barely a shadow does remain of the trade, people, economies and cultures of the original superhighway.

And lastly - as a sidenote - I borrowed the book from my local library. I just joined; I don't think I've had a library card since I was a kid. It's great to see our library filled on any given day of the week. How lucky we are to enjoy the treasure trove within!