The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 13 January 2020
by J. Claverdon Wood
In the history of Tibet, each of its secular and religious leaders, the Dalai Lamas has had to face powerful forces working against the institution and his country. Identified as a small child as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, each leader spends a period of minority under the tutelage of the Regent and, traditionally, the Panchen Lama. Because of fierce political forces, several of the Dalai Lamas never reached maturity and full posession of their secular powers. Regents themselves have been implicated in this, but so have the Chinese, who have long meddled in Tibetan affairs and who have occupied and ruled Tibet since its military invasion of that country in 1950. Indeed, the Chinese today are already preparing to assert their power in the selection of the next Dalai Lama. With the current Panchen Lama, China selected its own candidate to be indoctrinated in their version of Tibetan history and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. But this past (and present) century wouldn't be the first time the Chinese have done this. Meanwhile, the previous Dalai Lama, the Great 13th, faced a military invasion by the British in 1904, and resisted the Great Game as Britain, China and Russia all vied for control of this large trans-Himalayan country. Since the inception of the role of Dalai Lama in the 14th century, several have died young or even vanished, especially during the 19th century. On occasion, the death of a Dalai Lama would be witheld from the public as a Regent consolidated power, or perhaps wished to complete tasks that had begun under the late leader. All of this intrigue appears to have been fodder for this adventure story, steeped in Tibet's unsettled history, the imperialist prejudices of the British Empire and its racist superiority complex.
First published in 1917 after it was serialized in the classic imperial publication for well-to-do British youth, The Boy's Own Paper, this book is a vast and improbable adventure in Tibetan politics and imagined secrets. Targeted at the young boy's market, the book opens deep into an adventure of two British men and their caravan crossing the eastern Himalayas with the spoils of their exploration. Set upon by bandits, the infant son of one of the men has to be hidden in a nearby village. A day or so later, when the Tibetan team tasked with finding the new Dalai Lama reaches the village, a case of astonishment and mistaken identity leads to this British baby being selected as the supreme leader of Tibet and its Buddhist hierarchy. Nobody seems to consider the oddity of a blond Western baby becoming Dalai Lama. Determined to rescue the child, our heroes Cameron and his Chinese companion Langsam, follow the Tibetans back to the capital, Lhasa, and its spectacular palace of the Potala. As far as they are concerned, that a British child should be raised in near-barbarism by the Tibetans is seen as a humiliation of British nobility, intelligence and superiority. That it takes them twenty years to accomplish the rescue stretches the improbability of a story already pretty severely stretched. Meanwhile, the Regent is determined, through subterfuge and the application of a numbing poison, to keep the child Dalai Lama from reaching maturity and taking real power. The Chinese Amban asserts Chinese Imperial power over Tibet, as well, but he's in it for the profit and what riches he can extract from his rival the Regent.
But this is a romp, an imagined adventure for British boys. The book was written by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Carter, using the pseudonym of J. Claverdon Wood. It was geared toward teaching young boys the superiority of their culture, that all one needs to be secure in their Western heritage is a copy of Hamlet, the Bible, and The Pilgrim's Progress. Other cultures are merely exotic faraway lands to experience and, ultimately, to conquer. In this world, the word of an English gentleman is sufficient for all manner of inroads, contacts and promises. Meanwhile, we are repeatedly reminded of the one true god of the west, and the book, while full of political tales steeped in the real history of the region, gives barely a passing mention of Buddhism and its position in Tibetan society. Certainly not seriously, anyway, and only as rank superstition. In the end, we're treated to a vision in which Tibet is saved by the white guy of noble English stock. He will bring Christianity, commerce and wide smooth roads to this backward land. Hints here of Lost Horizon a couple decades later. Episodic in conception, the book might best be read episodically, lest the reader sense the tedium of relentless and unlikely adventure.
We're looking at a book and social assumptions that are over a century old here, so it doesn't do us well to critique it too much in terms of 21st century cultural expectations. However, one can look upon the work, written by a man who spent a great deal of his life as a missionary opening hospitals in India, and see not just the assumptions of his class, but what general knowledge about Tibet and its history was available to the author. In that context, portions of the book are rather illuminating. Much of its grasp of Sino-Tibetan relations echoes enduring conflicts, historical revisionism and political posturing even today. One may still imagine this book stripped of its excesses and imperialist aspirations, restore some of its Buddhist context, and come away with a fairly compelling story of a strange adventure in a little-known land.
See Also: [The Secret of Tibet by William Dixon Bell]
[Stuart in Tibet by Neil Buckley]
[Sue in Tibet by Doris Shelton Still]
[The Atom Chasers in Tibet by Angus MacVicar]