Great story, though it loses its steam

books:


	• Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey Ralph Leighton W. W. Norton & Company, 2000 - 260 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great story, though it loses its steam

I would never had read this book had I not recently had the chance to see Huun Huur Tu, a throat-singing voice from Tuva. But now that I am fascinated by this little-known, remote area along the Russian-Mongolian border, I found this book very entertaining. It chronicles the enormous challege of trying to visit such a remote land in the days before Glasnost and a fascinating cast of characters at its heart.
I think my only complaint is that the book loses steam at the end, which I guess is understandable, given the fate of its main protagonist. But overall, it is a wonderful testament to a group of brilliant folks, who spend years trying to follow through on a quest.

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More than a book...

It was all just accidental. I stumbled upon this book through a documentary that I rented, called Ganghis Blues. I like all types of music and thought "A documentary about Blues music, cool..." After realizing what a fortune of life I had found in this movie, I was drawn to everything TUVA. SO, to the book I go. The book of course came before the documentary, and obviously was an influence in the boys who produced it. When was the last time a book did something for your soul? This one touches your soul, your heart and your longing to achieve a goal or live out a dream. Aaaah. I loved it.

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Off-beat , wonderful video!

If you are a fan of Richard Feynman, the nuclear physicist that dreamed of going to Tuva, you will just love this video. If you know nothing of Mr. Feynman, you will still enjoy it. It tells the story of Paul Pena's visit to Tuva in a delightful way. You will like seeing the culture of these peaceful, music-loving people.

Something To Do

A peculiar book: Ralph Leighton's TUVA OR BUST isn't really about Richard Feynman, who, the more one reads about him, begins to seem a genius, yes, but more than a little insufferable. He does instigate this whimsical notion of visiting Tannu Tuva (which had become Tuvinskaya of the U.S.S.R. [the book takes place from the late 1970s to Feynman's death in 1989]), but the ball is picked up by Leighton, and Feynman is merely a supporting actor in the book.

The quest carries itself through many frustrations, mostly having to do w/ the hermetic paranoia of the Soviet Union, which seems to work like an enormous rural county: If you know someone, then things can be smoothed out; if not, then the official channels will be little help.

I'm not sure why anyone would read this book. There's no reason to if you're interested in Feynman, because, besides his concoctions to fit in at Esalen, amongst the New Age mumbo-jumbo, his mind is absent from the book. His personality & his drumming are there on occasion, but Feynman's thinking, no.

Leighton is not intrinsically interesting, and though a fluent writer, gives little sense of character. All the foreigners are forgettable, so the index is very handy. When a name turns up on page 150, say, then one can look it up to see which person this is.

As one reads, one begins to have the same thoughts about oneself that one has about Leighton's attempts to visit Tuva: Why am I going on?. Moreover, I think that one comes up with the same answer: Just to get through the damn thing. By the time that Leighton reaches Tuva (without Feynman, who died just a smidgen too soon), the appearance is anti-climactic, and the land is colorless: A Nevada trailer-park suburb, but with yurts instead of double-wides.

TUVA OR BUST! becomes a critique of bureaucracy. The slow, spirit-killing, mind-numbing bureaucracy of the Soviet Union ensured that Feynman would die without reaching Tuva. Our world, in which stupid little men can control our lives, is death to the spirit, and is death to the spirit of Feynman, insufferable though he may be, and inexplicably kow-towed to by everyone (you get the feeling that Feynman never opens a door for anyone or shuts one for himself).

TUVA OR BUST!, in its pedestrian prose, preaches, unwittingly, I think, for a freedom for whimsy, for the spirit, for the individual. At the same time, excepting the author and his male friends (his wife is also colorless), the book has no individuals. So, by the end, nothing: No Tuva to speak of, no more Feynman, nothing but an accomplishment to scratch off the list.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

As a stamp-collecting boy always fascinated by remote places, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was particularly taken by the diamond-shaped stamps from a place called Tannu Tuva deep within Outer Mongolia. He hoped, someday, to travel there. In 1977, Feynman and his sidekick--fellow drummer and geography enthusiast Ralph Leighton--set out to make arrangements to visit Tuva, doing noble and hilarious battle with Soviet red tape, befriending quite a few Tuvans, and discovering the wonders of Tuvan throat-singing. Their Byzantine attempts to reach Tannu Tuva would span a decade, interrupted by Feynman's appointment to the committee investigating the Challenger disaster, and his tragic struggle with the cancer that finally killed him. Tuva or Bust! chronicles the deepening friendship of two zany, brilliant strategists whose love of the absurd will delight and instruct. It is Richard Feynman's last, best adventure.

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