House of the Tiger King : The Quest for a Lost City in Q&A with Tahir Shah

Jun 01, 2012 Ita rated it it was amazing

‘A journey is a fragment of Hell.’ This Arab proverb is quoted at the start of ‘The House of the Tiger King,’ the book where Tahir Shah tells of his obsession to find Paititi, the city built by the Incas in Amazon cloud forest.

With him on the plane to Lima are a father-and-son film crew weighed down with equipment, a Bulgarian film student who is filming the film crew, and a Ukranian banker. They fly to Iquitos to persuade a Vietnam vet to join the expedition. The latter agrees, provided he can ‘A journey is a fragment of Hell.’ This Arab proverb is quoted at the start of ‘The House of the Tiger King,’ the book where Tahir Shah tells of his obsession to find Paititi, the city built by the Incas in Amazon cloud forest.

With him on the plane to Lima are a father-and-son film crew weighed down with equipment, a Bulgarian film student who is filming the film crew, and a Ukranian banker. They fly to Iquitos to persuade a Vietnam vet to join the expedition. The latter agrees, provided he can bring his personal shaman; and the shaman insists on first going to Nazka to find a mummy to bring with them. It soon becomes clear that their intended protector and his shaman spend most of their time stoned on hallucinogenic drugs.

A bus ride from Cusco takes them to the Madre de Dios forest, where they meet Hector who advises and accompanies them. Hector is a Seventh Day Adventist, but also a dreamer prepared, if necessary, to lay down his Bible and rely on older beliefs. The journey through Hell has started. Acting as porters are Machiguenga tribesmen, strong and capable of enduring indescribable hardship, but terrified of the Paititi ruins and of El Tigre, the ghostly predator which haunts the jungle. Progress is painfully slow, mostly on foot through water. Skin is lost from between toes, bees feast on sweat, and the men become host to guinea worms, chigger flies and the virus that causes dengue fever. Impassable rapids block the first attempt, and Tahir is forced to admit what Hector has been telling him: the time is not right.

The second attempt is even more hellish than the first. Ferocious storms add to the expedition’s misery and Tahir finds himself the object of the porters’ hatred. Journeys can bring out the best, or the worst, in people, he reflects, and this one has brought out the worst in him.

As you read this beautifully written book, you begin to feel that it is more than a single team’s search for a lost city. You will gain insight into Tahir Shah’s work, but you also begin to realise that what this extraordinary writer is retelling is no less than the journey of Man, when he seeks his own glory above all else.

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Apr 09, 2013 Toni rated it it was amazing

Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can.
House of the Tiger King. If you like Victorian explorers or `The Worst Journey In the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard,' you might like the House of The Tiger King. A journey couched in pain, rain like knives, dengue fever, inedible food, raw feet, aching muscles and other people's loads. AND beset by the hostility any real exploration is likely to generate. See Apsley Cherry-Garra Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can.
House of the Tiger King. If you like Victorian explorers or `The Worst Journey In the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard,' you might like the House of The Tiger King. A journey couched in pain, rain like knives, dengue fever, inedible food, raw feet, aching muscles and other people's loads. AND beset by the hostility any real exploration is likely to generate. See Apsley Cherry-Garrard: the best of friends often did not speak to each other for twenty-four hours for fear of saying what they should not. What else is in this book? Lots... whatever is the smallest mathematical measure, or glow worm in the dark. So many entry points that it is difficult, to be coherent. How about? `Don't confess anything they said,' (the Swedes said) `it will blow our cover.' Jungle ballerinas, who have become a chain saw gang, felling the environment that gives them life as fast as they can. Shamans who have diluted their knowledge with clap trap and are yet withal charismatic. Guides who know the way but are not going to do all the work for one. Some things, have to be done for oneself. Dreams of having things handed on a plate, just that, dreams. The frightening Richard (frightened me anyway) see Evelyn Waugh in `Brideshead Revisited'...`I never built anything, and I forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I'm homeless childless middle aged loveless Hooper.' Alcohol and drugs complete the damage. The river is the serpent, fighting for its life and the life of others. Knocked back again and again by the propensities of man, his greed especially, human being, a polite title. Tahir Shah, would appear to have helpers, his old explorers for one.
And huge `more easily seen' enemies, embodied in that government/oil excavating official.
Those pot noodles, what are they? Placebos...??? Just pot noodles, when you are cold and hungry and despairing? A suggestion that anything is magic, according to what we know and don't know. Or everything IS magic. This is an old explorer's route. Lucky even to get to read about it. ...more

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