''In Xanadu: A Quest'' is a 1989 travel book by

William Dalrymple William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple (born 20 March 1965) is a Delhi-based Scottish people, Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He spends nine months of each year on his goat farm in India. He i ...

Overview

''In Xanadu'' traces the path taken by

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

from the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

to the site of

Shangdu Shangdu (; lit. "Upper Capital"; ), known in the West as Xanadu, was the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan. Located in what is now Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia, it was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong and served as ...

, famed as Xanadu in English literature, in

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

, China. The book begins with William Dalrymple taking a vial of holy oil from the burning lamps of the

Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Some ...

, which he is to transport to

, the summer seat of the King Kubla Khan. It has been mentioned that Kubla Khan wanted a hundred learned men armed with Christian knowledge to come to his Khanate and spread the knowledge of Christianity. However, that plan was abandoned, and Marco Polo, along with his uncle, set out from Jerusalem on the

Silk Route The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

to Shang-du, to deliver a vial of the holy oil, which was rumoured to be inexhaustible, and therefore kept the lamps at the Sepulchre constantly burning. The rest of the journey is outlined with descriptions of most of the ancient sites along the Silk Route, through which Marco Polo was supposed to have passed. The author compares the old time splendour of the cities on the Silk Route to their present physical and political conditions, and thereby illustrates the changes. Of special note is the part on his passage through the then revolution-torn

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. He also describes the bureaucratic tangle he got into while getting a permit for China via the Northern Areas in Pakistan, and spending a couple of days in the Kohistan valley near Besham, on the banks of the river

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the dis ...

in Pakistan, which is supposedly the last area where

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

might have stopped during his conquests.{{citation needed, date=June 2015 People of different ethnicities are also mentioned in the book, mainly the present-day Central Asians and the Gujars from Kohistan and Swat valleys, although various scholars in Pakistan have doubted the veracity of many of these accounts. The author also describes a primitive rite of the Gujars which he claims he accidentally stumbled upon while exploring the area. Dalrymple speculates that the rite is a 'shin' ritual, apparently a throwback to the ancient pagan religion of the Gujars, which they followed before converting to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

; whereas Pakistani scholars opine that the incident simply depicts a wedding feast in Kohistan, in Northern Pakistan, where a goat is ritually slaughtered for the guests and is typical of a festive banquet of the area, and that Dalrymple is making much out of his rather hurried and uninformed passage through these parts. These scholars throw a skeptical light on the portions of this book connected to Dalrymple's travels from

Mansehra Mansehra (Urdu, ) is a city in the Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. By population, it is the List of largest cities in Pakistan, 71st largest city in the country and the List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, ...

town until his passage into

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

.Dani, Tarin and Syed, as cited above

Reception

The journey was taken on a multitude of types of transport and lasted for four months. The book, which was written when the author was 22, received positive reviews and won several awards, and established Dalrymple as a major new arrival on the British literary scene. Eminent travel writer

Patrick Leigh Fermor Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greate ...

chose ''In Xanadu'' as his book of the year in the ''Spectator'' and wrote, "William Dalrymple's ''In Xanadu'' carries us breakneck from a predawn glimmer in the Holy Sepulchre right across Asia... It is learned and comic, and a most gifted first book touched by the spirits of Kinglake, Robert Byron and E. Waugh." Sir Alec Guinness agreed, and in the ''Sunday Times'' called the book "The delightful, and funny, surprise mystery tour of the year."

References

1989 non-fiction books British travel books Scottish non-fiction books Books about Central Asia Books by William Dalrymple