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 enlarge | Author: Sara Wheeler
Publisher: Abacus
Category: Book
Buy Used: $8.14
Used (10) from $8.14
Rating:  6 reviews
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0349120013
EAN: 9780349120010
ASIN: 0349120013
Publication Date: December 7, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-6 of 6 | | « PREV | | |
 Planes, Trains, and Stereotypes February 20, 2006
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is one of those books that you keep reading for the promise of things to come...but it never delivers. The idea of accompanying the writer on her travels from north to south in "a thin country" is a compelling one. Unfortunately, the writing is not.
The writer spends a great deal of the book writing about the trials and travails in getting from point A to point B, never fully focusing on the beauty of the destination or the people. How can you write about a Chile and fail to convey the sense of incomparable beauty that most travelers see?
Now, I understand that there are travel writers who write about the journey and not the destination. So this could have been one of those humorous, roll-with-the-punches travel tales. But it wasn't that either. Instead,the journey stories were tedious and sounded a lot like complaining.
To the book's credit, a great deal of Chilean history is interspersed throughout the book, but this, too, ends ups sounding like a high school textbook. Prosaic and repetitive, the history offered never comes to life.
But I hate to give up on a book, so I slogged through 3/4 of it, riding along from the northern reaches of Atacama all the way to Antarctica. And, then, this:
"Each country transports its culture to the bottom of the world when it sets up in Antarctica - the good and the bad. In Bellinghausen the piles of rubbish, the acres of mud, the puffy faced men with silver teeth, the ghostly outlines of the metal letters CCCP which had been clumsily jimmied off the doors, the abandoned machinery of failed scientific projects, the one minuscule and inadequate Lada - well, they were Russian all right."
Up until now I've generally thought of most travelers as an enlightened bunch, people who can see beyond cultural stereotypes...but this writer managed to cram every available negative Russian stereotype into one telling sentence. Telling, because it revealed more about the writer, in my opinion, than Russian culture.
And, come to think of it, there were quite a few negative comments about the Chilean people as well. They were frequently referred to as insecure and self-obsessed.
This is when I decided to throw in the towel. This was one journey I no longer wanted to participate in.
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