Max is an English topographer who has been sent to the Himalayan Mountain Range to create an atlas of them, as well as of the surrounding Indian landscape. Leaving on a survey trip that is planned to last over a year, Max abandons Clara, his pregnant wife, as well as his young daughter, Elizabeth. While in the mountains, Max encounters obstacles ranging from dead bodies to the natural climate. He discovers his passion for botany on his journey, writing to a botanist, Dr. Hooker, about his findings and offering to bring samples of the plants from his travels, to which the doctor responds encouragingly, promoting a deeper interest in the botanical aspect of his work, though he was hired only to make drawings and descriptions of the land. Max doesn't get along well with his crewmates. Though they work together well enough, they don't form any interpersonal relations with him, while friendships and sexual encounters blossom between the rest of them. Max feels incredibly lonely, despite the packets of letters Clara has written to him in advance, in addition to the current ones she sends to him. She updates him on the birth of their second daughter, Joanna. Michael endures an identity crisis, brought on both by the extreme weather conditions that cause a near-constant fever and delirium, as well as his budding interest in botany. Going back and forth to the mountains and returning to a nearby city, Srinigar, he finds that his topography work is suffering because of his delirium and loneliness. In the city, he finds a woman, Dina, with whom he begins an affair. Dina is the type of woman who's had many affairs with strangers and Max is only a new addition to her ledger. As his trip is coming to an end, he writes to Clara, though he withholds the information that he desperately wants to stay another year. He wishes to explore botany in a more serious manner and believes he can only do so by taking this serious endeavor into it. He finally feels his identity crisis has ended, with him discovering that if he could just stay another year, his appetite would be satiated, and he could return to Clara and be faithful to her.