Tiger for Breakfast by Michel Peissel: book review

Tiger for Breakfast (1990 edition, first published in 1966) is about a man, a dream, a hotel, a city, and a country.

Peissel met the man, Boris Lissanevitch of Kathmandu, in the spring of 1959 when his plans for an anthropological survey of Bhutan were dashed by the commencement of China’s incursion into Tibet. Diverted from Bhutan to Nepal, officials suggested Peissel meet the influential Lissanevitch, the owner of The Royal Hotel in Kathmandu – the same Boris of Han Suyin’s novel The Mountain is Young (1958), one of the first novels I read from my mother’s library when I was 10 years old. The Royal Hotel, at the time, and now the Yak and Yeti Hotel, was “not so much a hotel as a décor for Boris’s sense of elegance” when no road led to Kathmandu and vehicles were carried on men’s backs “not in parts, but fully assembled and in one piece.” It was the first hotel for foreigners as Nepal was opening up to tourists in 1950, especially mountain climbers.

Peissel’s book is the history of The Royal Hotel, one half of General Bahadur Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana’s palace, managed by Boris since 1954 after his interest as founder and manager of the 300 Club in Calcutta, India, waned and fell apart. The Royal is a hotel visited by kings, queens, princes, princesses, Sir Edmund Hillary – after his ascent of Mt. Everest – famous dancers and entertainers, King Mahendra of Nepal, and even Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Boris, at age 55, was a handsome man, a previous ballet dancer. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, he was also a restless man, an adventurer, and an entrepreneur. He was the number two attraction in Nepal, after Mt. Everest.

The novel is primarily about Boris and his dream hotel, but it is also about the isolated Valley of Kathmandu in Nepal – and the Himalayas and their climbers, the jungles and their elephants and tigers, and everything in between.

Peisel writes evocatively of Kathmandu, its streets and artisans – the expert woodcarvers and architects that made Kathmandu “one vast work of art.” He writes vividly of Boris’s grand dreams and schemes and the efforts in which he brings them about, for himself and others, in an era when difficulties were immense but the impossible didn’t stop anyone from trying.

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog