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Title: Read it for fun, it's not a guidebook
Review: Kim Robinson's spoof on life in Nepal is fast and funny, a great romp. It's also reasonably accurate as concerns places and names, and its descriptions of the scenery at high altitudes is evocative. Always remember, though, the main story is pure fiction. Like the yeti itself. Read the book for pleasure, but don't expect to become informed about Nepal in any detailed sense. The author evidently has only visited the area, he hasn't lived there long enough to get to know it in depth. He doesn't know enough about caste and tribal distinctions and he has a rather naive slant on internal politics. But I don't want to be too harsh, for at least in an allegorical sense he provides some useful insights about clashes between the modernization the Nepalese want and the traditional values they don't want to lose, and about some of the environmental problems and paradoxes that bedevil the whole modernization process. (Note: I was US Ambassador to Nepal, 1981-84).
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