Cambodian Glory

Several aspects set this travel book from the 1930s aside, to begin with the remarkable knowledge the author came to accumulate about the current state of archeological and historical research at the time of her visit.

For instance, H.W. Ponder brings to us important insights on the discussion among Angkorean specialists regarding temple datation. Was the Bayon an early architectural prowess or the testimony of an art that already had reached its peak and was prone to symbolic excess?

Also fascinating is the deliberately feminine, and even feminist approach of the Khmer temples. The author never shies away when attempting to describe the emotions and feelings triggered by the Angkor site, the tactile vibration of ruins and nature. Women of the ancient Khmer civilization are vividly evoked in chapters boldly titled "Celestial Nymphs" or "Citadel of Women" (about Banteay Srei).

This free-spirited and modern mindset is obvious when the learned traveler pays attention to oral traditions and contemporary rituals that, as she senses it, can inform us on ancient history more vividly and perhaps accurately than academic, cold studies.

The author is an equally excellent observer of the Cambodian society in the 1930s, describing with the same alert eye the young students at the Ecole des Arts Khmers that George Groslier had founded in Phnom Penh a decade earlier or the solemn ceremony of a royal cremation.