Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton
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Book Reviews of Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey
Book Review: It's nice to be in Feynman's company again
Summary: 3 Stars
The obsession started with a simple question, posed after dinner in 1977, when the subject of conversation had turned to geography. Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who would later serve on the commission investigating the Challenger disaster (in 1986), asked his friend and drumming partner Ralph Leighton whether he knew what had become of Tannu Tuva. Leighton had never heard of the place and suspected he was being set up, but the Encyclopedia Britannica confirmed its existence. Tannu Tuva was once an independent country, but it became part of the Soviet Union in 1944. When Feynman and Leighton learned that the capital of Tuva was Kyzyl--a city without any proper vowels in its name--they knew they had to go there: "A place that's spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L has just *got* to be interesting!"
So began our heroes' eleven-year quest to reach Tuva, a more difficult project than you might imagine. Tuva, buried in the Asian heartland, was isolated, the Soviet Union was forbidding, and even basic information was hard to come by. (This quest, remember, was undertaken before the explosion of the internet. One catches oneself, when reading the book, thinking anachronistically about the task: why not just Google the place?) Eventually, of course, they learned an awful lot--about Tuvan throat-singing (my 1991 edition came with a 45!) and Kyzyl's main buildings, about Tuvan stone carvings and shamanism. And they communicated with Tuvans in Tuvan, using a Tuvan-Mongolian-Russian phrasebook that they turned into a Tuvan-Mongolian-Russian-English phrasebook.
Leighton's account of their various attempts to reach Tuva can be confusing--lots of names to remember of contacts who may or may not have wound up aiding in the effort. It all gets a bit muddied. And there is not as much of Feynman in the book as one would like. Tuva or Bust is primarily an account of Leighton's role in the quest, with Feynman making brief appearances now and then. Still, it is good to be in the physicist's company, however briefly, and it is good to be reminded, by this quixotic project of his, of Feynman's joy in experience.
Feynman fans, in short, will enjoy the book. Those who are not acquainted with him already, however, should become fans first by reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? (Feynman was also the subject of James Gleick's Genius.) And *then,* when you're really hooked, get the CD of Feynman drumming and telling stories about his experiences as a safecracker....
Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
Book Review: Worth reading, but not my favorite R. Leighton book
Summary: 3 Stars
I think 'Surely You're Joking...' and 'What do you Care...' are the best biographical books on Feynman. They were written by RL with Feynman as first person, that is, as if Feynman wrote it. To me, this added greatly to the books, and I had hoped for something similar from this book.
Unfortunately, Tuva or Bust! is written from RL's point of view, not Feynman's. I guess there was not enough direct involvement by Feynman to support writing in Feynman's words. Or maybe RL just wanted to write from his own point of view for a change. Just be aware, this is more a Leighton book than a Feynman book.
The book and other reviewers write about the journey being greater than the destination, which I completely understand. But, word-for-word, this book is about RL's journey with Feynman checking in from time to time.
That said, I think it is still very much worth reading. It is a facinating story of a facinating time in international affairs, and for the die-hard Feynman buff, there is plenty of new information and trivia. Who would have expected a Feynman connection to Alan Alda?
Book Review: Why was this published?
Summary: 1 Stars
Ralph Leighton may well be a fun guy to hang out with, and Richard Feynman almost certainly is, but this book really has no reason to have ever been in print. There's almost nothing about the obscure Russian province of their obsession in the book--it's mostly a chronicle of the hobbies of various people who are probably about as interesting--but not more interesting--than most of your friends. The childlike enthusiasm they develop for the language and history of Tuva is charming at times, but after a while their relentless ignorance even of the most basic ways of going about collecting information starts to wewar. Their insistence on providing direct translations of Tuvan in the original turkic word order must seem to the author to be cute--to this reader it came across as mocking the language. Almost any foreign language would sound ridiculous if translated word for word with no corrections for grammar or word order. Both grammar and vocabulary of Tuvan appear to be extremely similar to turkish, so they had huge resources available to them to decipher the language, but it appears from the book that none of them ever figured out that they were even dealing with a turkic language. They never even mention the total lack of words for gender in Tuvan, or the lack of irregular verbs--a huge boon to a prospective langauge student. I'm sure they're fun guys, but this really is a waste of perfectly good tree...Book Review: This book is a fraud
Summary: 1 Stars
I am a confirmed Feynman fan and even met him a couple of times. I was eager to learn more about him and his travels. The subtitle promised details of his "last journey", which, it turns out, he never made. Instead, I was bored with insipid details of the author's attempts to arrange a trip to the USSR and other assorted junk. It did not even spend much time on Tuva itself, but on unrelated trivia. It was apparent that the author was immensely more interested in the trip than Feynman, and that even he wasn't interested enough to stay at it to fruition. The author trades on the Feynman name to shamelessly promote the book and con the reader into plodding through endless drivel. Don't bother.Book Review: Drags
Summary: 1 Stars
I enjoyed the beginning of this book, but after a while it just drags. Could have been a nice story in the New Yorker, but as a book it just doesn't cut it. Forced my way to the end.Summary: Couple of guys want to get to this obscure place cause they like the name. Jump through lots of hoops trying to get permission. One of them dies. Permission comes. That's all folks.