I’ve finished Return To Tibet , Heinrich Harrer’s second book on his time in Tibet. Written in the early eighties, soon after the border was reopened for the first time since the Cultural Revolution (1960s), this book is a completely different animal to his first volume, Seven Years in Tibet .

For a start this not a story – more of an account – and it only spans but a couple of weeks. By far the most significant change though is how much more political this is than Seven Years.

Harrer clearly was disgusted by many of the changes since the time he spent there, and although the physical destruction of the country’s heritage clearly appals him, I also found his negative attitude towards the Tibetans who collaborated with the Chinese revealing. In the first book there is little in the way of a personal revelation – much of what he says is very matter of fact – but here we learn his opinions on the Tibetans in general. If you can believe anything of the film in relation to his personal behaviour, it is clear why he now expresses his admiration for the Khampas (out-of-city warrior tribes) and belittles those who co-operated with the Chinese invaders in order to save themselves.

I wasn’t so sure of the book format this time – many of the chapters are of unequal length and at times Harrer repeats himself, but by the final sections I definitely was reaping the benefit of his insights. The more I have read, the more I have found his story ingratiating. With it being nearly 25 years since this second book was written, it is interesting to now compare my own experiences with his.

This book is not to be tackled without first reading Seven Years, and doesn’t quite grip you in the same way, at least initially and certainly if you are more interested in a good story than reminiscing on the past, the airing of personal regrets (if circumstances had been different) and conversations with Buddhist lamas on the level of oppression suffered by their countryfolk.

Overall I enjoyed it, although not as much as the first book. It had that same appeal of the ‘Seven Up’ television series – with a genuinely worthwhile gap left between instalments (unlike the distance between Charlotte Church’s two autobiographies).

Harrer died in January last year, which is a shame as there are many questions that seem unanswered and especially in relation to the differences between the books and the 1997 film portrayal. I don’t have anything concrete to back this up with, but after reading this second book I get the impression Harrer probably wasn’t too dissimilar from his portrayal on the screen.

His full autobiography is due out this year, so I’m hoping to get my hands on a copy. In the meanwhile, I’m going to have to locate some other reading material…

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I’ve mentioned this book before, but I was half way through it then, so now I’m at the end I thought I’d pen a review.

I suppose I could have written about the two other books I have read that have a vague connection to the topic/geographics — Palin’s Himalaya and Craig’s Tear’s of Blood. Both are very different reads (one is a travel log and the other is a freedom campaigner’s account of historical events), but neither was really a page-turner.

By the end of both I was finding it a chore to get through another chapter, and maybe with Tears of Blood it was more to do with me trying to enjoy actually being there rather than spending the whole time feeling obliged to read. But the difference between these two books and Heinrich Harrer’s insight into the Shangri-la of 1940s Tibet (but really it could have been set at any time before the Chinese occupation) is that I finally found a book that drew me in.

Harrer does not mince his words. At times I felt that if I had not ‘been there, done that’, that a lot of his reference points would be lost on me. He doesn’t go out of his way to explain unnecessary detail, and his descriptions are not packed with metaphors and flamboyant language. Well it might have been in the original German script, but if so, it’s all been lost in translation.

But despite only having a brief encounter with Tibetan life, this book gave me enough to rekindle my memories and reabsorb myself in what seems like a mythical way of life. It’s hard to believe that for the most part is still very much a real existence in most parts of B� (as the Tibetans call Tibet).

Harrer’s chequered past is not really addressed at all, and until I looked him up after completing the book I had not realised his previous involvement with the Nazis and the SS. Apparently he never was involved in any thing particularly questionable, and his merits as an Olympic athlete and mountaineer probably should bear more mention, but it was an interesting discovery none the less.

Maybe not knowing so much about the author from the book or before I started was a good thing. The brief context-setting in the first chapter is adequate to set the scene and (like the rest of Harrer’s text) is in complete contrast to the overblown introduction (at least in the 1983 edition I’ve read).

Harrer recounts all events with brevity and plain language that tells the story with clarity and not necessarily beauty. Without accompanying photographs the book lacks somewhat. Not only did photography and videography become a key part of his time with in Lhasa and with the Dalai Lama, it also is needed to really illustrate what Tibet looks like. We have nothing in the West that even compares slightly and although most people know what The Himalaya looks like, Tibetan culture is still a mystery to most.

I hadn’t visited many places that Harrer did on his journey, and the places where our paths did match, he doesn’t give enough away to really explain the place (as I would have). This book is far more event-centric rather than concerned with the details of the towns and vistas, but I don’t think it suffers too much because of this and it makes the whole text an easy read. Even by the end we are none the wiser to the personality of his seven-year travelling companion of Peter Aufschneiter.

I think Seven Years is worth a read, but I think you need to tackle it in context. A map of the Himalyan region to hand and a brief insight into the history of the Dalai Lama & Panchen Lama before you start will help. Don’t worry about being versed on the complications of China’s occupation – before that the history of Tibet was pretty straightforward and quick to pick up on.

For anyone who has been to Tibet or is thinking of going, it’s an essential.

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