Why does the Ian Fleming hero's exotic travel adventure continue to evoke such passion in India and other non-Western societies? The post-Fleming cinematic avatars such as "Octapussy" seem to typify the classic hero's tryst with the Orient. In In Xanadu: A Quest William Dalrymple positions himself on the recognizable terrain of the Western travel text. However, despite the self parody, the book seems to be trapped by the overall colonial grid and tapestry. The powerful sweep of the Western male gaze and the subservience of the colonized subject seem to be part of the larger hermeneutic. Dalrymple's quest for retracing the footsteps of the Venetian brothers, Marco and Nicolo Polo, replicates the journey of Alexander the Great and other adventurers/buccaneers/travelers. Although he pushes for a monolithic West and Christianity, the landscape he goes through affirms a hybrid and heterogeneous world and multiple world views which uphold at once faith and secular modernity. In the process, despite Dalrymple, In Xanadu becomes a unique contemporary travel text with a lasting appeal.

When William Dalrymple published In Xanadu: A Quest at the age of 22 and won the Scottish Arts Council's Spring Book Award in 1990, Alan Franks of The Times, London, hailed the book as `a splendid piece of British eccentricity.' Dervula Murphy, herself a recognized travel writer, thought that the work brought in an admirable combination of `history, danger, humor, architecture, people, hardship, politics, while Eastern Daily Press reported that `it was rich in esoteric knowledge and a sense of the ridiculous'.

By now Dalrymple has acquired a somewhat iconic status in the subcontinent as a travel writer and a cultural historian. He is mentioned in the same breath as other venerables such as Mark Tully. It may thus be worthwhile to look at his debut travel text In Xanadu. The intention clearly is not to do a post-colonial reading of the derivative kind through the binary, Manichean tropes, but to see how we can unpack the leading thematics, namely quest, hybridity and counter-memory that seem to constitute the substance of this interesting narrative. I use the term "counter-memory" as a working definition as the experience, both cultural and metaphysical that challenges the dominant memories, crucial to the self-definition of individuals and civilizations.

Dalrymple positions himself on the recognizable terrain of the western travel text. There is a Mission into the unknown and there is the Man, on an expedition to the exotic East, journeying from Jerusalem to the fabled palace of Kubla Khan, Xanadu, in the far East. Instead of the customary female companion: vulnerable, chaste and sexually loyal to the protagonist, there is here the one time lover, the feminine Louisa and her substitute, the athletic Laura, both of whom share the hero's mission but not his bed. There is irony, and self-deprecatory humor, an attempt to see eccentricity and amusement all around as indeed self-reflexively within oneself. However, despite the self parody, the book seems to be trapped by the overall colonial grid and tapestry. The powerful sweep of the western male gaze and the subservience of the colonized subject are part of the larger hermeneutic. Dalrymple's quest to retrace the footsteps of the Venetian brothers, Marco and Nicolo Polo, replicates the journey of Alexander the Great and other adventurers/buccaneers/ travelers and assorted free booters.

English Studies Journal, William Dalrymple, Cultural Historian, Xanadu, Manichean Tropes, Communitarian Identities, East Jerusalem, Mongol Tribes, Turkish Women, Italian Medical School, Islamic Society, Renewable Resources, Chinese Communism, Free Market Economy, Secular Modernity, Mandatory Concessions.