The Rose of Tibet

I have read this probably a hundred times and it never fails to entrall me. There is enough truth woven into this story that will allow you to be swept away by the adventure. Of course it helps that am Buddhist-leaning myself and have always had an interest in Tibet.

In a lifetime reading addiction, this novel shares equal place in my affections with Bengtson's "The Long Ships" for sheer reading and re-reading pleasure; my paperback copy is absolutely tattered! Even the initial colour and background chapters are well-crafted enough to reward re-reading, whilst the later chapters are both alive and page-turning.The hero of the piece, Houston, is a decidedly callow specimen, and his rise to the status of demi-god lover of a she-devil, and his metamorphosis into reactionary Imperialist dog and terrorist against the invading Chinese, is an absolute delight.None of Davidson's characters are perfect, but their imperfections place them perfectly in the well researched (I hope) Tibetan world that Davidson has created. The only really honourable character is the native guide Ringling who deserved a better deal than he got for his loyalty and courage.How this book has avoided being made into a film is beyond me, as is my inability to like any of Davidson's other books, (not that he's written many!).This book has single-handedly stopped me from writing a novel of my own, I don't think I could even come close. One can't give a work a higher endorsement than that.

This is the most fascinating book I have read in years. What makes it so good is that it's based on real events and about a country closed to the western world and about which the west knew very little at the time. The book was written in 1960, nine years after Houston returned from Tibet. What happened to him in that remote country was so strange as to be unbelievable, yet I was left with the feeling that those events really did occur. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I couldn't relax till I'd finished the book. One is left wondering about so many things, not least what really happened to Houston in the end, one can really only guess from the clues given in the story.

Yes, I've longed for the far-off, edge-of-the-world, seat-of-your-pants distraction where, in this instance at least, the hero is a Hitchcock-like average Joe from England (where ALL great adventures get underway) who sets out to unearth the whereabouts of his brother; he travels to Tibet; it is 1950, the Red Chinese are massing on the Eastern borders and the Tibetans are not Heinrich Harrar's (of "Seven Years in Tibet" notoriety) chubby, moon-faced brothers of the high hills -- hey! the book is a barn stormer and refreshing after so much of today's overthought, underwrought fictions of mass distraction.