A long and winding road

Having read The Prester Quest almost at a single sitting, I think I can say without fear of contradiction or a libel suit that Nicholas Jubber is full of it. But his is a most passionate, exuberant and charming kind of ‘it’, and his account of travels in Italy, the Levant, Sudan and Ethiopia in search of — well, in search of something — is a delight.

Nominally he is trying to nail down the myths that surround Prester John, the ‘Priest-King of the Indies’ and master of an earthly paradise located somewhere between Turkey and China. We do not know precisely where, but Ethiopia seems like a good bet. My television company once produced a documentary film based on the same dubious premise about King Solomon’s mines. Jubber and his companion, the robust and indefatigable ‘Mike’, set off on a long and winding road through the Levant. They are accompanied by the spirit and memory of the 12th-century physician, Master Philip.