Harry Holcroft: The Spice Route (from Europe to Asia)

The Spice Route (from Europe to Asia)

by Harry Holcroft

HarperCollins $34.95

Reviewed by Barbara Harris


They were fought over, produced enormous riches and had superstar status, but this is not another book about that girl band.

Rather, it is an artist's journey through Europe, the Middle East and Asia following the trade route of spices, some of which were once worth their weight in gold.

Harry Holcroft, a former soldier who attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing, embarked on this work after the success of his first book, The Silk Route.

Its companion, The Spice Route, is essentially a picture book and a striking one at that, made up of Holcroft's paintings, sketches and notes.

He has travelled extensively in the remotest parts of the world and seems always ready to go that one step further to impart a sense of place. Even if, at times, this puts him in danger.

And in his diary extracts which accompany the pictures, he shows as deft a hand with words as with a brush.

On an interminably long bus ride in India, he writes: "I am like a ping-pong ball in the final of the Chinese doubles."

In Yemen's capital of Saana he awaits the call to prayer. The mullahs begin "wailing" at 3.30 am, which sets all the city's dogs a-howling. "I have listened with anguish to my teenage daughter's techno music, Def Leppard and to Wagner's Valkeirie [sic]; but not even Bartok at his worst or best could create a noise like this. This cacophony turns the very marrow of your bones rancid."

One quibble, however, is that given that the book is built around Holcroft's talent as an artist, it's odd, and somewhat disappointing, that no mention is made of the medium used in his paintings and sketches.

That aside, it's a leisurely afternoon's read and the evocative paintings - all of which are now in the hands of private collectors - make it a book worth dipping into again.