The Frozen River, James Crowden
The Frozen River, James Crowden
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The Frozen River

Author: James Crowden

Narrator: James Crowden

Unabridged: 12 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/23/2020

Synopsis

‘A of luminous writing.’ Mark Cocker, Spectator ‘In 1976 James Crowden left his career in the British army and travelled to Ladakh in the Northern Himalaya, one of the most remote parts of the world. is his extraordinary account of the time he spent there, living alongside the Zangskari people, before the arrival of roads and mass tourism. James immerses himself in the Zangskari way of life, where meditation and week-long mountain festivals go hand in hand, and silence and solitude are the hallmarks of existence. When butter traders invite James on their journey down the frozen river Leh, he soon realises that this way of living, unchanged for centuries, comes with a very human cost. In lyrical prose, James captures a crucial moment in time for this Himalayan community. A moment in which their Buddhist practices and traditions are in flux, and the economic pull of a world beyond their valley is increasingly difficult to ignore.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicola on March 01, 2022

An exquisite, slow paced memoir of the authors time in remote Ladakh in the Himalayas, to spend winter with the Zangskari people who lived there. The frozen river is a blend of nature writing, winter mountaineering, Tibetan culture, history and Buddhism, all the while seeking solitude and surrenderi......more

Goodreads review by Ivor on March 22, 2020

This memoir of a young Englishman’s winter in a remote valley in the Himalaya is simply marvelous. James Crowden brings you with him as he experiences life in a remote, harsh environment and finds transcendent beauty in the mountains, the people, their culture and allure of Buddhist philosophy. The......more

Goodreads review by Valerie on April 16, 2021

At first I decided not to read this book. I've had more than enough of isolation after months of lockdown without going forth into the mountain wilderness. However, curiosity and an interest in mindfulness prevailed, and I'm just emerging from several hours of ploughing through what has turned out t......more

Goodreads review by Reb on February 07, 2024

I wanted to love this, but it was a struggle to get through, largely due to the author's constant need to share what he was (allegedly) thinking at the time. His 40-year-old diaries must have been very comprehensive. I found that the chatty style of Crowden's inner monologue intrusive against the ly......more

Goodreads review by kxtera on December 05, 2022

dnf around 1/2way did not vibe with the writing...every sentence felt like a fever dream......more

Quotes

Praise for ‘The singular virtue of Crowden’s prose is to create a sense of enormous immediacy … he acts as a transparent lens that gathers all that fierce Zanskari winter light and illuminates the primary colors of both the place and its people. In so doing, .’ Mark Cocker, Spectator ‘The adventure brings out the best in Crowden’s writing, which in full flow has a .’Oliver Balch, TLS ‘A revelation ‘In prose hard as the frost and gritty as the rocks, James Crowden weathers a Himalayan winter in snow-bound Zanskar and recalls the boundless hospitality and ingenuity of his wind-furrowed hosts. ’John Keay, author of ‘Terrific. Being a Beast ‘A luminous book, exquisite in its depiction, profound in its rhymes of ice and mind. As testament to its transporting power, when I’d finished it I felt I had spent a winter in Zanskar.’Jay Griffiths, author of ‘A fascinating, immersive, hair-raising read.’Tim Pears author of ‘A wonderful book, otherworldly, full of the ecstasies and revelations of true isolation and hardship.’ Philip Marsden, author of ‘through his eyes we glimpse a vanishing world; the nature, people and traditions little changed for hundreds of years … a fleeting glimpse of an older way of life’

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