Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: The book is just wonderful, and it is written expetionally well. I've been to China and I can see that his descriptions are very true (I don't mean geography here).

Rating:
Summary: One man's journey thru the Red China of the 1980s.
Review: This is a rather dated book about Thubron's journey through the Red China of the 1980s. The Wall he is referring to is the Great Wall and he visits both ends of it and meanders around this vast country. As a travel experience, Thubron treats his travel experiences by jumping around. First he tries to describe the countryside, with some flourishing descriptions and this tends to confuse the reader. Perhaps he is writing this for a British audience, but those of us on the other side of the Atlantic have a hard time digesting some of his wordings. He jumps from one experience to the next, so the flow of his writing is rather jolting. Some of his experiences make for good stories, but for the reader to mine this, he is in for an uneven read.
This is an average read because of the flow of the book. For those interested in Red China, this may be of interest. For those interested in travel, there are better travel books out there.