Non-fiction Review: My Old Man and the Sea

 

Title: My Old Man and the Sea
Author: David Hays and Daniel Hays
Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1995, 231 pages.
Source: Daly City Public Library Associates booksale

Publisher's Summary:A story of adventure on a small boat, for fathers, for sons, and for those who love them. On this voyage the father relinquishes control, the son becomes the captain, and before long they are utterly alone, with only the huge waves of Cape Horn, a compass, a sextant, a pet cat, and the tiny boat they've built together. "The account of the passage, related in alternating sections by father and son, will be read with delight 100 years from now."--William F. Buckley, The New York Times Book Review, front page; "A must read for sailors of the sea and of the heart."--Eco Traveler. 

 
My Review:  I really enjoyed this book, and in some ways it's hard to know exactly why. I'm not a sailor, and will never be one (can you say motion sickness?), and many of the details about sailing went right over my head. I still don't know if sailing around the Horn in a 20' sailboat is an amazing feat or an act of idiocy, or nothing much or something in between, but there's no denying that a father and son who can share that 20' boat for about 6 months with only a few battles are something special.

The book is written in alternating sections by David (father) and Daniel (son; in his mid-20s). David writes in more the reflective creative-non-fiction style, while Daniel confines his reflections in a journal format. Both speak openly and honestly about everything from their own feelings about each other to their feelings about themselves. David spends a bit of time writing about his own father and their boats, perhaps in an attempt to explain how and why he and David end up at sea together. In any case, it helps develop the theme of fathers and sons, and little he writes seems extraneous.

Daniel's style is a little more spare, but he, too, is completely honest about his feelings and his failings. In the end, what we have is half adventure story, and half a paeon to the love of a father and son--and the infinite complexities in their relationship. In a way, this was a good companion book to Cokie Roberts' We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, which I read at the same time. Which makes me think that I'd really like to read about a mother-daughter pair doing a similar adventure.

My Recommendation:
If the premise sounds interesting to you, go for it. The book is well-written and and easy read.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased My Old Man and the Sea, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

Non-Fiction Review: Glory in a Camel's Eye

 

Two covers, because the image of the one I read--on the left--is so small. Plus, I think the other  cover is nicer :)

Title: Glory in a Camel's Eye: A Perilous Trek Through the Greatest African Desert
Author: Jeffrey Tayler
Publisher: Houghton Mifflen Harcourt, 2003. 245 pages.
Source: Library

Publisher's Summary: 
Hailed by Bill Bryson and the New York Times Book Review as an emerging master of travel writing, Tayler penetrates one of the most forbidding regions on Earth. Journeying along routes little altered since the Middle Ages, he uses his linguistic and observational gifts to illuminate a venerable, enigmatic culture of nomads and mystics.

Though no stranger to privation (having journeyed across Siberia and up the Congo for his earlier books), Tayler is unprepared for the physical challenges that await him in a Sahara dessicated by eight years of unprecedented drought. He travels across a landscape of nightmares - charred earth, blinding sky, choking gales, and what is fittingly called the Valley of the Dead. The last Westerner to attempt this trek left his skeleton in the sand, and even Tayler's camels wilt in the searing wastes.

But his remarkable perseverance, as well as his fluency in classical and Moroccan Arabic, helps him find here a bracing purity. The Saharawi Bedouin among whom he journeys are ur-Arabs, untouched by the modernity or radicalism that festers elsewhere in the Arab world. By revealing their ingenuity, their wit, their unrivaled hospitality, and more, Tayler upends our notions of what is, and what is not, essentially Arab. 

My Review:
For the record, lest you wonder why I chose this book, my younger son is planning to travel to Morocco this summer. I picked up a number of books about the country from the library, and as he elected to read the history of the country, I took this as offering perhaps an interesting perspective on the land. I can only be grateful that my son's trip won't be quite like the author's!

Tayler's journey is challenging in many ways, and makes for an interesting tale. There is a certain artificiality about it--the only reason he is putting himself through some serious danger and privation is for the sake of writing a book. I felt that though he clearly has a good grasp of the politics and culture of the land, and is putting himself out to learn more, something was missing from his  motivation (apparently a desire to see more of a country where he had been a rather unhappy Peace Corps volunteer). Maybe it's just that Tayler is more honest than many adventure travelers. After all, he is seeking a "first"--a trip through the desert that hasn't been made by any Westerner, and maybe not by anyone, since his path isn't that taken by the nomadic peoples of the Sahara. But that's not what he talks about, unlike many who are documenting their record-setting journies. He is just telling us about a trip, as though he has no choice but to make it. He does want to get to know the land and the people, and that is what makes the book work.

The author doesn't pull any punches about the conditions he encounters, nor does he set up any simplistic assessments of the people or the politics of Morocco. He may, as the blurb says, find "a bracing purity," but it is a purity that all too often is living in ignorance and filth, as the nomadic peoples have been forced by drought and changing times into settled life in villages that are in turn dying of the drought. These people are far from the centers of power, but the politics practiced in the capitol do affect them, at times disrupting traditions that might serve them better. The long-running dispute with the inhabitants of Western Sahara is acknowledged, but not explored in any great depth (something which would take a whole book; I know this because I found a whole book on it at the library).

What I was left with on finishing the book was both a strong sense of the people of Morocco's desert and an equally strong sense that Tayler and therefore the reader didn't entirely know what he had gone into the desert for. His strong writing just salvages a narrative that probably dwells a bit too long and hard on the filth and flies and his clear lack of pleasure in the land through which he is traveling.

Recommendation:
There's no denying that if you want to know what the Draa region of Morocco is like, this book will give you a no-holds-barred view of it. It's 13 years old now, so some of the politics are out of date, but the growing concern even then with Islamic extremists rings true--as does the typical person's repudiation of those extremists. I have read more engaging travel narratives, but this one is worth a look if you are at all interested in the area.

Full Disclosure: I checked Glory in a Camel's Eye out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

Hiking Long Trails (Book Reviews)

Back in my younger years, I harbored moderately serious fantasies about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (now that I'm 50, that's been reduced to a tentative plan to hike the John Muir Trail, or a version of it that suits us, in a couple of years).    (Note: the PCT is 2,660 miles and runs from Mexico to Canada along the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains.  The JMT is 210 miles and runs from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous US).

Even though I do not now expect to ever through-hike the PCT (and don't actually want to--too many parts of the trail just aren't that fun), I still love reading books about it.  This month, a friend sent me two books about couples hiking the trail.  Both were winners of the Barbara Savage Miles From Nowhere Memorial Award, given to compelling narratives of personal journeys in the form of muscle-powered adventure.

First, a note about the Pacific Crest Trail, because this is important to understanding both books: The problem with walking 2660 miles in a single season is that you have to start very early.  This is fine for the desert portion of the trail--in fact, even March is getting almost too hot there.  But the Trail in the first 300 miles, alternates between desert crossings and climbing up over 10,000-foot peaks in the San Bernardino Mountains.  Weather seems to be wrong more often than not, and you're never quite in the right place at the right season.  If you are too early, the Sierra is impassable (and you have to hike it when it's only sort of passable).  If you are too late, either you die in the desert or you freeze in the North Cascades in October (and probably get snowed out and have to quit).   And even by time you reach northern California, you are hiking through some very hot and dry areas in the middle of summer.  There are places where you just have to hike 25-30 miles in a day, because there is no water.  The highest point on the trail is over 13,000' (a pass in the Sierra); the lowest is about 180 feet, where the trail crosses the Columbia River.  That's a lot to ask of any body.  If books like these talk a lot about food, there's a good reason for it.


 I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool For Love Hike the Pacific Crest Trail, by Gail D. Storey.  211 pages, including appendix on gear and food.
Published 2013 by The Mountaineers Books
Source: a friend sent me her copy to read, along with A Blistered Kind of Love (see below).

Summary: Gail Storey and her husband of 19 years deal with his midlife crisis by getting outside.  He is fairly experienced (he hiked the Appalachian Trail a few years earlier); she is not.  Gail is going along, originally, primarily because she doesn't want to be left behind (as she was when he did the AT; she started that with him and quit after 40 miles).  The story is as much about their relationship and her growth as a human as it is about the trail.

 Review: First off, I want to say that I found it immensely encouraging to read this book, because Gail and her husband, Porter, are in their 50s.  Not 20-somethings who have bodies willing to take a beating, but people like my husband and me--fit, but  having to be a bit cautious about the level of abuse we dish out.  And the trail does dish out hard stuff for them.  Weather, distance, elevation changes, altitude.  And Gail's body does not take kindly to this.  Instead of hardening to the trail, she loses her appetite and loses way too much weight.  But here's the thing: instead of wanting to quit, she falls in love with this painful way of living.  She is finding out that there is something she's out there to do besides be with her husband, and she's sort of sitting back and letting it happen.  The Trail chews Gail up and spits her out.  But her account of it, and of the spiritual change that takes place in her through it, is worth the reading.

Here's my favorite line, just to show that the woman also has a way with words.  She is describing a time she spent three months in a Buddhist monastery, before she was married:
"Like me, everyone in the meditation hall seemed hell-bent on finding peace."


 
  A Blistered Kind of Love: One Couple's Trial by Trail, by Angela & Duffy Ballard, 264 pages.
Published 2003 by The Mountaineers Books
Source: given to me by a friend (see above).

Summary: Angela and Duffy Ballard hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2000, as a pair of not-yet-engaged 20-somethings.  He was in medical school, she working, so they operated under strict time constraints (he had to be back in Philadelphia on Sept,. 20 to start school--a pretty early end date for the trail).  Neither of the pair was particularly experienced, though he at least had done some camping as a kid.  This book is about both the relationship and the trail, but perhaps more about the trail than I Promise Not to Suffer.  While the Storeys practiced a fairly extreme ultra-light approach, the Ballards  opted for heavier packs and more comfort.  It's interesting to see how the two options pan out, as each has obvious drawbacks (a scant tarp is dubious shelter when the weather truly goes wild, but a tent is a lot of weight when you have to carry a gallon or more of water and 10 days worth of food).

Review: It was fun to compare the two books, though I don't really recommend reading two such books back-to-back, especially if you have responsibilities that you might prefer to leave behind (no, I won't be running away to hike the PCT.  For one thing: winter.  But it's tempting).  I found this to be a more compelling narrative of the trail, leaving me with both a more complete sense of what it's like to hike it and a more even narrative.  This is probably because the book is written by both Angela and Duffy, in a back-and-forth style that could use some visual cues to tip the reader off, but otherwise works well.  I like that incidents--especially fights--were dissected from both sides.

Fights, you say?  Well, naturally.  Neither couple gets away without conflict; it would be unbelievable if they did.  But this pair had only been together for a year or so, and had a lot to learn about relationships and each other, at the same time as they were learning about hiking.  An impressive survival feat!  It's not surprising that they express fears and worries about things that a more experienced hiker (I've never done a long trail, but I've spent a lot of nights in the wilderness) might dismiss.  I found myself at times feeling superior ("well, gee, didn't you guys even know. .  . "), but it's part of what impressed me: that two such neophytes actually made it to Canada (even if they didn't hike absolutely every section; time constraints forced a couple of skips).

Favorite bit: the first acknowledgement in the front of the book is. .  . the peanut, without which their hike (and many others) wouldn't have been possible.



Full Disclosure: I was given  copies of I Promise Not to Suffer and A Blistered Kind of Love by a fellow hiker, and received nothing whatsoever from the author or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and no one else's.

*****

And if you like to hike and want to introduce the kids to it--check out my fun picture book: