Tomory, David

A Season in Heaven: True Tales from the Road to Kathmandu

Hawthorn, AU: Lonely Planet Publications, 1998. First Edition. Softcover. “You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.” Xingjian Gao, “Soul Mountain”. In the 1960’s and ‘70s a nascent spiritual awakening was taking place. The Hippies were blowing their minds on LSD and psilocybin while bodhisattvas were reading them passages from the Gita’s and the Upanishads. This blending of the counter cultural movements of the 60’s and 70’s and psychedelic Buddhism led to multitudes of groovy ascetics making pilgrimage to India. “A Season In Heaven” is a chronicling of thirteen individuals who themselves made said pilgrimage in search of some greater meaning. David Tomory follows these individuals' journeys across the four seasons; where they were and what they did across this mind-melting crusade, formed out of interviews and a myriad of perspectives. From Istanbul, to Iran and Afghanistan, to Pakistan, and finally India, these narratives mesh together to form a web of profound introspection and spiritual growth across this long and winding trek. Tomory, the author of this particular curation, himself has made such a pilgrimage in ‘71 and since has returned numerous times while authoring a not-insignificant-amount of travel and journalistic writings about both India, and the Hippy movement of the 60’s and 70’s. Tomory presents each narrative in the perspective of that particular interviewee, and tracks all thirteen of them across the four seasons allowing the natural subjectivity of each interview to bleed through the narrative, rather than having a once-removed omniscient narrator re-telling the journey. “A Season In Heaven” is a sweeping narrative that manages to encapsulate the experience of these thirteen clandestine hippies and the profound experiences they had. Softcover; first Australian edition (though not explicated) with reference to a preceding UK edition two years prior (1996) as stated on the copyright page. [ISBN: 9780864426291]. Book is in very fine condition with slight wear and tear at fine edges and some minor smudging to front and back covers, otherwise substantially mint. Very Fine. [Item #5556]

Price: $60.00