The subtitle of this non-fiction book is Ireland to India with a Bicycle and just reading it was exhausting. It’s hard to imagine someone could do this, but doing it in 1963 is truly amazing. I must resist the urge to recount all Dervla’s stories, but hope that a few of them will give the feel for how she coped with the challenges and what beauty and joy she found.
To begin this epic journey she faced the coldest winter that Europe experienced in 80 years. She hardly mentioned her time there, but noted she took a train across the Alps. It was in the former Yugoslavia that she first made use of the pistol she carried. She had taken a ride on a truck that slid off the road and while the driver stayed with the truck, she set off in the evening on a path through the woods to get help in a village. She shot the two wolves who had attached themselves to her and made her way to the village where the local policeman’s wife treated her with hot rum.
Having a pistol was not always useful: near Ardabil in northern Iran when she encountered a policeman intent on raping her, she knew he was armed and her pistol wouldn’t help her. She said the “ensuing scene was too sordid for repetition” but did say she used “unprincipled tactics to reduce him to a state of temporary agony.” In this area she saw movingly beautiful scenery, particularly around Mount Ararat. She writes eloquently about the quality of the light in the region.
It was uncomfortable to read her pronouncements about the various national groups of people she observed. For example, she found the Afghani people (men, really, as she rarely could be with women) to be wonderful She declared she was safe there. But she also wrote about how beautiful the giant Buddhas of Bamian were, and of course it was the Afghanis who dynamited them in 2001. She did acknowledge that often by the end of her time in a particular country, she had a much warmer feeling toward the people.
She has opinions about the attractiveness of various groups she encountered. Her pronouncements are sometimes specific and odd; she said the Sik men were astonishingly good looking, “yet, somehow not altogether pleasing. Unlike the proudly handsome Afghans whose features are made additionally impressive by the spirit within, Sik good looks are of a conventional, rather film-star type. They are reported to have a most regrettable effect on some Western women, but I can’t see the remains of my virtue being undermined here.” And she goes on referring to even more uncomfortable stereotypes.
Because she mentioned the city of Abbottabad in Pakistan, familiar to us as the place where Osama bin Laden met his end, I read about it. It turns out that it was founded by and named for James Abbott, a military officer in the British Raj.
Despite her obvious willingness to put herself in harm’s way, this remarkable woman lived to the age of 90.
Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt, first published in London, 1965, 235 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.