Rating: 
Summary: funny, informative, and even a little inspiring
Review: "Tuva or Bust!" is the story of three friends in the 1980s, who were determined to travel to Tuva, a little known land in Central Asia, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union. Their original motivation? As Richard Feynman says in the first chapter, "A place that's spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L (Tuva's capitol) has just got to be interesting!"The book chronicles the adventures and misadventures of Ralph Leighton, one of Feynman's longtime friends. Though the book is subtitled "Richard Feynman's Last Journey," it's really Leighton's story; Feynman is more of an inspiration and a supporting character. Over several years, Leighton and his friends wrote letters, researched articles, read books, and became more and more fascinated by Tuva, a tiny country in the middle of nowhere. They learned, among other things, that Tuvans practice three different types of steppe herding lifestyles, within a hundred miles of each other, and that Tuva is the home of throat-singing, a musical technique in which a single person produces two notes at the same time. Leighton's narration is chatty, reminiscent of Feynman's autobiographical works; one suspects Leighton learned to tell anecdotes from his friend. However, Leighton isn't as inherently fascinating a narrator as Feynman. Also, Feynman's persistent cancer, which kept him from participating in several preliminary trips, and finally killed him shortly before Leighton received permission for a group of Americans to travel to Tuva itself, casts a pall over the book. Still, this is a fascinating story -- a great example of what people can do if they really care about a cause, and don't realize precisely how little chance they have of succeeding. It is also informative, if somewhat superficial in its description of Tuvan culture; I now want to know more about Central Asian peoples, and Tuvans in particular. But while the chapter "Reflections 2000," included in the new paperback version of "Tuva or Bust!" is interesting, I really don't think it was fair of Leighton to mention a new idea for a Tuvan monument to Feynman, and refuse to give any details. Now I want another reprint!
Rating: 
Summary: Something To Do
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly Great, But Slightly Condescending!
Review: Did you know of certain artists who painted scenes on a human hair! Yes, bring your magnifying glass! Or singing in 2 part harmony with only one singer! I surely did not before reading this book! However, as a stamp collector starting at a very young age (about 7) , I also was fascinated by the Tanna Tuva stamps, and still have a nice assortment of diamonds and triangles. This book is an amusing and informative read, not least in its descriptions of meetings between Soviet and western scholars during some of the "Bad Old Days" of the 1980's Cold War, including moments like the shooting of KAL 007 near Korea. At times , though, there does seem to be a slightly condescending attitude towards a small section of Siberia based on what seems "funny" to English speakers. Nonetheless a very worthwhile read, with many amusing anecdotes, not to mention the amazing cancer recovery attitude of Mr. Feynmann himself!
Rating: 
Summary: Drags
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best one about Feynman, but "Disappointing"? NO!
Review: I have to strongly disagree with the person below who found the book dissapointing. Sure: it's not exclusively centered in Feynman, but more around his struggle to make it to this faraway, almost concealed land of Tuva, between Russia and Mongolia. It's about a man's dream and struggle to make it come true. All the books you'll find touching Feynman in one way or another come down to one thing: the meaning of life, what it is to live and fight through life, while having fun at the same time. I DO recommend this book: it is filled with adventure and shows a lot of Feynman's innate curiosity (in an almost childish way, which is good!) and perseverance (an incredible trait which most of us have a lot to learn from). If you want to learn more about Feynman's character and uncover the most unexpected anecdotes surrounding this Nobel Prize winner, check out these two other:
-'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' : Adventures of a Curious Character, and
-What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character. Enjoy the trip!
Rating:
Summary: Fun read
Review: I just had a few miscellaneous comments on this book. Although this book isn't so much about Feynman's last trip as about the trials and tribulations he and his longtime friend Leighton experienced trying to get there, this was still an enjoyable book. Feynman himself passed away from cancer shortly before they got permission to actually travel to Tuva, a remote region of Mongolia near the Altai mountains, a 10,000-foot-high mountain range that separates eastern Mongolia from western China. But because of his illness, Feynman himself isn't so much the protagonist in this story so much as the inspiration, as Leighton discusses the research and preparations that led up to the final journey. But there is still enough of the inimitable Feynman, the "curious character" as he calls himself, in the narrative for it to be enjoyable to long-time Feynman fans. The pictures of Feynman in an elaborate Tahitian headress playing the drums at a concert and dressed up like a Tibetan lama with hat and prayer wheel are truly comical and show the great physicist certainly had a sense of humour about himself too--even as he was dying from cancer. I came to the book partly because I already knew something about Tuvan throat singing and had read a little bit about Ural-Altaic linguistics, and so knew something about the Mongolian languages, and a little about the life-style of the herders in the area. It turns out the Altaic language group has had some capable linguists studying the family over the last 30 years, and a lot more is known now than in the past. I've found at least one site with much good information on Mongolian and Altaic languages on the web in the last year. But all that was by way of saying, stangely enough, that I actually knew something about this remote and obscure area of the world before reading this book, and so was interested to see what sort of adventures Feynman and his friend might have there. Although Feynman himself never made it there, I learned much about the country I hadn't known before, and having Feynman's unique and funny perspective on it made it all the more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Scientific Adventure!
Review: If you are interested in science and the irreveant journies that a life time of curiosity can take you on, then this is a book for you! Follow the author and Richard Feynman on their improbable and convoluted journey to go to the former country of Tannu Tuva. Their surpreme reason for going there? Because the capital is spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L!!! The book is well written with funny stories of the over 10 year search to find information on Tuva and a way do get to this part of the USSR during the height of the Cold War. A good easy read with some pictures of the events. The original version came with a disk of the throat singing from Tuva talked about in the book. I have not read the 2000 edition, but from looking at this version it seems they only changed the new version by adding the section with comments from 2000. The end is a little disappointing and anti-climatic, but overall it is truly worth the read for the inspiration of following your dreams no matter how crazy they maybe!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Feynman's inspiration...
Review: If you're reading this review, you've probably read dozens of witicisms from Richard Feynman, one of science's most colorful characters. Though the name suggests otherwise, this is really about a Feynman inspired journey. Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman spot a stamp from Tuva, which inspires Leighton's journey around the world. What makes the book an interesting read is that you can easily follow Feyman's curious energy in the actions and writing of the author. This really brings the heart of the book's value - this type of intellectual curiosity is not just the property of Richard Feynman. Anyone can chase a journey because it's fun or because it's there. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and hope that you do too.
Rating:
Summary: Why was this published?
Review: 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...
Rating:
Summary: It's nice to be in Feynman's company again
Review: 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....
Debra Hamel -- book-blog reviews
Author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
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