Beyond Seven Years In Tibet: My life before, during and after has been the third book that I have read by Heinrich Harrer, and probably the last for sometime. Being his autobiography, it really is more than just an expansion upon his most famous work, Seven Years In Tibet, and the other book I recently finished, Return to Tibet.
It’s odd that I never showed any great interest in his writing before, or really had any knowledge of this man’s life. It wasn’t until after my time in Tibet, India and Nepal that I actually got around to reading any of it. Most of the volunteers who we met out there had already read the book, leaving me a little out of the loop until I got back home and started my way through some of it.
This version in English was only published in July, and it took me 6 months for a copy to arrive. I rarely use the local library, but it saved me £25 as ithey had to purchase it specially as there were no copies in the system when I first asked after it.
Harrer penned the original German copy of the book back in 2002, but his death at the age of 93 (this time two years ago) meant that he didn’t live to see the UK release.
The book is very much in the same distinctive literary style that all his writing takes. Incredibly matter of fact, with little in the way of emotion or ornamentation, it makes makes for text with exceptional clarity, although at times you do wish he would give away just a little more. I felt more satisfied with this book than with the previous two for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this book really does set the scene. His childhood life in Austria, his (Olympic) sporting career, and his successful first ascent of the famous Eigerwand mountain in the lead up to the second world war (which is interesting as it is from a German perspective). It also covers his time spent at Dehra Dun civilian prisoner of war camp in India, and then joins up with Seven Years as he makes his way deep into the Himylaya.
His time in Tibet provides an extraordinary account, and after visiting the place, and comparing it to the photographs and accounts of previous explorers, I can’t help but find the whole idea of pre-occupation Tibet as being a truly magical and romantic existence.
But of course that was all to end, and after returning home to meet his son for the first time, he then tells of the many expeditions and photographic assignments he undertook in the following 40 years. And this is where I became truly captivated with this book. I had read a lot about Tibet by the time I started this, and I’m glad he doesn’t dedicate more than he needs to the subject - if you want to read about that you clearly should read his 1957 book. But for all the details of his experience in the Belgium Congo, with the final days of the remote tribes of New Guinea, along the Amazon, Borneo, Africa, India and Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet once more, then you need this volume.
It amazes me that after his time in Tibet he spent so much time networking with the mountaineering/explorating elite - encounters with Sherpa Tenzing, Edmund Hillary, King Leopold III and others - and to think that all of this occurred in only the past forty years is astounding. Mainly because it’s hard enough to believe Pygmy tribes living in a practically Neolithic existence still survived well into the mid to late 20th century. His encounters with native inhabitants in still highly unchartered and often dangerous lands and times seem impossible now, and his love of the outdoors and for ethnological study really comes to the foreground as his passion - something I don’t think that is so easily picked up from his most famous, earlier writings.
Clearly he experienced some distress in the later part of his life when journalist started digging up his past, but as I can’t seem to find much discussion about this and it’s hard to draw any conclusions. If anything, this is one aspect of his life that I still am unsure I truly understand. By the time he got around to producing his memoirs he seems to have been content with his achievements, and I think I’m now content with my exploration of his life.
A truly remarkable man who led an extraordinary existence and never seemed to waste any of his 93 years.