How would you describe Allan's political ideologies in the novel? What influenced these ideologies?

Allan refuses to take any one government at face value, having been disillusioned as a young man with his father's obsession with socialism, which cost him his life. The use of the Himalayas is also metaphorically appropriate by the author, as Allan is a larger-than-life character and hence needs equally grandiose settings against which to tell his story.