Critique from The CAMBRIDGE

The University of Cambridge is considered to be one of the top universities in the world. The CAMBRIDGE is the biannual magazine of the Cambridge Society - the official society for Cambridge University graduates. The CAMBRIDGE reviews a few selected books each year. Here is an independent and objective critique of THE HIMALAYAN TRINITY.

Whatever else this book is, it cannot be described as a light read, although certainly it is an interesting and intriguing one. Its author, a Cambridge graduate and former soldier in the Royal Engineers, now domiciled in Australia, intertwines three major life-challenging journeys: a trek in Nepal advising on the creation of water supplies, his personal travels through a course of chemotherapy following a diagnosis of Hodgkin's Disease, and an on-going journey of self-discovery through studying Eastern and Western philosophies and practices of health care, psychology and spirituality.

The stated primary aim of the book is to help those facing life-threatening illnesses, or those with friends and relatives suffering from one, and to help with life itself. The book makes challenging reading. It is conceived as a trilogy about the mountains Mark Kingsley has climbed in his life, three journeys which together comprise the one journey we all make, called life. It attempts to deal with the major questions facing human beings: 'who am I?'; 'what is my purpose?'; and 'where do I go when my life is finished?' As an appendix, worksheets are provided to help the reader reflect on these questions, and attention is drawn to them throughout the book.

At times the inter-weaving of the three strands of the book makes for confused reading, and it is not easy to see how one strand is necessarily connected to another. The trekking in the Himalayas, nine years before Kingsley began his battle against cancer, could easily have been written as an entirely separate book. The black and white reproduced photographs illustrating these pages are rather grainy, and add little to the text. Moving from past to present leaves a sense of disjunction, which is only partially ameliorated by the soul-searching philosophical chapters, which in part join the other journeys together.

There is evidence of a great deal of wisdom in the pages of this book, gleaned from a life-time of impressively wide reading, applied to and enhanced by his own life experiences. As General Sir Sam Cowan observes in his short foreword to the book: 'Mark's extraordinarily wide-ranging thoughts and ideas on a whole host of subjects reveal not only an amazingly versatile mind and very wide reading but also an ability to bring disparate thoughts together in a way which sheds new light on some extremely difficult issues.' Kingsley's concerns are holistic; humans are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual creatures, all of which aspects need to be held in balance. As he speaks of his cancer and its treatment, he reflects on a range of alternative and complementary approaches. He looks at food and diet, at GM crops and a range of therapies available from Traditional Chinese Medicine.

At the back of the book, there are copious 'endnotes', some 358 in total, many of which need to be referred to for the text of the book to be clear. These include the explanation of obtuse words, such as the description of a Gurkha porter as an 'onychophagist', (someone who bites their fingernails), or the possibility of suffering from 'arachibutyrophobia', (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth). A number of inclusions seem rather irrelevant, and take away from the main focus of the book. These include four pages outlining an invented 'game', called 'Male Order: a game for any boy who has ever had a father'.

For me, this book felt at times to be over-worked and over packed, with its stream of consciousness not allowing the wood to be seen from the trees. Some of the theories discussed had an undigested feel to them.

Despite these reservations, Mark Kingsley's A Himalayan Trinity contains a wealth of information and experience, and might best be appreciated in small bites, rather than in an attempt to swallow it at a sitting. There are some splendid nuggets for reflecting on, treasures from the writing of others, as well as original gems of his own which provide helpful food for thought. One such for me is: 'Perhaps coincidence is just God's way of performing miracles anonymously?'

Writing with compassion and humour, Mark Kingsley offers in the pages of this book reflections on his life and experiences which can become for its readers a vehicle to take them on their own journey.

By Canon Christine Farrington
The Cambridge Society