I just finished "The Road to Oxiana" by Robert Byron. Bryon's book traces his travels through Persia and Afghanistan in the early 1930's. It's considered a "sacred text" in the travel writing genre venerated by famed sojourners like Bruce Chatwin and Rory Stewart. I'll use the vague "okay" adjective to describe my feelings about it. Not quite as enjoyable as I hoped. Fine read...just not spectacular. Didn't live up to the hype.I found Byron pretentious. His technical criticism of architecture was tediously long and over indulged in minutae. I guess if you care about the number of squinches surrounding the support frames of a dome you might find it engrossing. I found such ruminations boring and self-indulgent. When Byron's descriptions of architecture remained artistic and aesthetic...I enjoyed it. When scientific and engineering-centric...I nodded off.
Byron favored architectural importance over historical importance. As a historian I prefer the history. He was very dismissive of the Bamiyan Buddhas, (above left) those ancient and massive monoliths so callously destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. He rejected any notion of their artistic value. The Taliban could have used Byron as a reference to further legitimize their barbaric destruction of these treasures.
He slights the giant Buddhas but raves about the tower of Kabus (above right). The tower has an interesting history...once containing a glass coffin suspended from the ceiling holding the remains of a revered leader. Architecturally I may be fairly ignorant...but this tower that Byron posits as one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of building...is rather plain and simple. Elegant in its simplity, yes...but nothing to get worked up about.
Good book. Interesting read but only of iconic status due to the fact it was the first of its kind in the travel genre. Witty, sarcastic, caustic and funny but I'll take Chatwin and Stewart any day.
