Traveller in the Orient [antikvár]

Introductionhis book is of double interest to the public because in addition to itssplendid array of photographs in colour and in black and white it is thedébut of Dr Hurlimann as the writer of the text accompanying his camera upon its travels. It is in fact his first full-length text, and there is every reason to think the reading public will not be disappointed in him. He has long been known, internationally, as one of the world's foremost commentators with his lens, but now he appears for the first time as the mind behind the camera.At the first of many dips the page opens at a pilgrim in his mushroom/ shaped straw hat, staff in one hand, begging/bowl in the other, standing in front of a long line of charabancs. Behind him a young woman dressed like an air hostess leads along a group of small boys in school uniforms. It is a commentary upon the divided soul or dichotomy of present/day Japan. And turning the pages we come to one of the most beautiful of Htirlimann's colour plates; a village scene during the boys' festival in Japan with two small boys walking under a green bamboo pole from which float great streamers in the form of more than life/size fish, paper fish twice as big as the small boys, and with their scales marked white on black and white on red. What beautiful photographs there are, too, of pro/ cessions of Shinto priests under the tall cryptomerias at Ise! They resemble some esoteric, outdoor performance of The Magic Flute.But we must turn to the beginning of the book which is in Beirut, where there is indeed a tinge of disappointment for we only see a demonstration of students and the gimcrack modern buildings, whereas Beirut with all its brazen modernity has more to offer in the way of Oriental costume than either Cairo or Istanbul. But we are removed at jet speed to India, a subcontinent that most exactly suits