A strange book
By Fleur
@Fleura (30671)
United Kingdom
February 7, 2023 11:38am CST
My partner bought me this book as a birthday present; he knows I enjoy travel writing and I used to ride horses so it seemed a perfect fit – horseback adventure in a country I’ve never visited.
Well I did quite enjoy reading it but I did find it rather odd – the author managed to fill the whole book with hardly a mention of any of the key topics you might expect in a horse-based travel book.
Virtually nothing about any of the horses, or horse-related traditions of Mongolia. Or anything about Mongolia really!
Nothing at all about how she coped with riding many different horses she’d never met before.
Not much about what it is like to ride for many hours a day for ten days.
Barely a mention of any of the Mongolian people.
Very little about the landscape the riders traversed.
And not a single picture.
It was mostly about her mental state, her thoughts about the other riders and race organisers, and how far ahead the leader was.
Is this what modern travel writing is like? All about the author’s mental health and no mention of the people for fear of seeming patronising or ‘colonial’? Or was this just an anomaly?
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.
7 people like this
6 responses
@lazydaizee (6735)
• United Kingdom
8 Feb 23
Mental health seems to be more important than anything else these days. Such a shame you did not enjoy the book especially as it was a gift.
2 people like this
@lazydaizee (6735)
• United Kingdom
8 Feb 23
@Fleura I sometimes do that when I am reading a book that is going on a bit. I try to read the ending so that I know what happens without having to read the book all the way through.
2 people like this
@JudyEv (343439)
• Rockingham, Australia
8 Feb 23
I may not bother with this, following your review. Is the author related to Lucinda Prior-Palmer? I have all her books.
I know at least three of our endurance riders who have done this ride and they have spoken to us about it. They could write a great book about it. It was really interesting to listen to them. You can follow the race on the web and that gives a lot of footage and info.
Hopefully your travel book was an anomaly. 
1 person likes this
@Fleura (30671)
• United Kingdom
8 Feb 23
One reviewer of Rough Magic wrote 'It's the resistance to the obvious narratives that makes Rough Magic so appealing - the book undermines lazy women-in-the-wilderness tropes at every turn.' Maybe I'm oblivious but I haven't come across 'lazy women-in-the-wilderness tropes' anywhere yet!
1 person likes this
@Deepizzaguy (105223)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
7 Feb 23
I think the author of the book did not have the proper title of the book since the author only wrote her view of the subject matter.
1 person likes this
