 |
|
Title: Oaxaca Journal (National Geographic Directions)
ISBN: 0792242084
Author:
Oliver Sacks
Publicate Date: 2005-10-04
Publish: 2005-10-04
List Price: $10.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.75
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.64
Amazon Merchant Price: $8.76
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: The Journal of a Journey
This book has its own special charm. World- renowned psychologist and author Oliver Sacks takes a trip with members of the American Fern Society. He is an amateur here, but cannot conceal his respect for his fellow travelers, and his joy at being with them in the Mexican province of Oaxaca. Sacks describes his own childhood fascination with the work of Naturalists, and gives portraits of those avid students of specific botanical forms, those lovers of the smallest details of the natural world. For me however the Ferns and Sachs description were of secondary interest. I found his descriptions of his fellow travelers, his meditations on the history and culture of the area, his thoughts about himself and his role as perpetual single in a world of couples- more fascinating.
The book is small but it is informed by a great intelligence and sensitivity . One passage I particularly enjoyed involved Sacks sitting alone and writing in a cafe in a central square of Oaxaca. He talks about the way Hemingway loved to write in cafes in the light of the day, and the way Auden closed himself into the darkness and kept all light out. He says he himself finds the cafe and the light congenial but above all loves the experience of writing on a moving train.
In this book he moves beautifully through different levels of the natural and human world, and provides the reader with a pleasant and richly informative journal of his journey.
|
2: Ferns, ferns, ferns...
I am a huge fan of Oliver Sack's writing. He brought so much interest, knowledge and "wow" to case writing and now, he is bringing it to ferns and travel writing. To tell you the truth, I would never have picked up a book about ferns and would have hated it if someone was so bold as to give me one as a present, but when I went to the bookstore to browse for some summer reading, I was intrigued to find this book.
What initially got me was the graphic of the ferns on the cover. They reminded me of some food items at a fancy restaurant I had a while back. Paging through the book, I was intrigued by more wonderful graphics and finally by the fact that this was a travel journal. I rushed to the register and indulged in the first couple pages that very same afternoon.
I enjoy travel writing - mainly because it gives such an intimate look into another person's observations, thoughts and experiences. Some travel writers are careful not to say too much, but Sacks gives it all to his readers. I so much enjoyed his very detailed descriptions of his friends, the natural landscape, the food and yes, the ferns. I walked the unpaved paths with him, put on my glasses to find yet to be discovered plants and listened to his conversations with his friends.
This is a wonderful book. Sacks has a great way of keeping his readers engaged with stories of ferns and interesting facts about his travel companions. I highly recommend the book to all of the curious and open minded that won't be put off by ferns.
P.S. This book belongs to a series of travel writing published and, I think, commissioned by National Geographic.
|
3: Frank and engaging observations
Some chapters are a delight to read- a very frank and engaging take by the author on his observations and thoughts. Other chapters seem a tad self-contained and unbalanced, with way too much attention and emphasis given to a particular observation or subject. Given that it's a jouranl though, one reasonably expects that the jottings penned would have a bit of a subjective emphasis and a slightly idiosyncratic feel.
|
4: An unedited journal, straight from the heart
After finishing this book, I am convinced that people who develop a passion for something, be it for career, avocation, or hobby, tend to live longer and are more frequently happy, and when they die, they die happy. I bet Oliver Sacks is one of these lucky people! Never cease to be fascinated--that is one key to happiness, and Sacks proves to us just that. Without question he is a Renaissance man, keen to share with us his enthusiasm for his profession (evident from his excellent prose in "The man who mistook..." and his other books) but stays open to ideas and activities that pique his interest, one of which is attending and participating in the New York Botanical Garden's Fern Society and embarking on a weeklong trip to Oaxaca, Mexico with a quirky cast of people whose common interest in ferns and other plants, and birds, transcend professions, economic status, nationality, and personal histories. The fact that the book was based on his travel journals that were written at the time of his trip and were left unedited made the reading experience more poignant and powerful. At the end you feel grateful for people who look "beyond the scenery", who take the time "to stop and smell the flowers", and who see the world almost with the same innocence as children, for they are the ones that make life richer, and perhaps even make the world a better place for the rest of us--and for future generations.
|
5: Mispickel! Orpiment! Realgar!
Dr. Sacks accompanied a group of botanical friends on a trip to see, catalogue, draw, and take delight in the unparalleled variety of ferns in Oaxaca, Mexico. His resulting journal is a meditation on Zapotec culture, amateur naturalists, edible insects, psychedelics, and above all ferns: seemingly so fragile yet having survived, with little change, for over 300 million years.
According to the author, his "sense of a prehistoric world, of immense spans of time, was first stimulated by ferns and fossil ferns."
For someone like myself who loves both ferns and the writings of Dr. Sacks, this journal is a treasure. It was composed under the blue sky of Oaxaca and filled with an emotion that Dr. Sacks admits is usually foreign to him: joy.
The author is fond of reading natural history journals and he has created a multi-faceted gem of his own, out of observations on lost civilizations, mescal, cochineal insects, plants as rare as horsetails a hundred feet high, and others as common as the bracken fern.
Half of our property in Michigan is covered with bracken ferns and I was always curious as to why insects didn't seem to bother them. According to this author, bracken is regarded as the 'Lucrezia Borgia' of the fern world: "the young fronds release hydrogen cyanide as soon as the insect's mandible tears into them, and if this does not kill or deter the bug, a much crueler poison lies in store. Brackens, more than any other plants, are loaded with hormones called ecdysones, and when these are ingested by insects, they cause uncontrollable molting."
The Romans used bracken on their stable floors because it arrested or perverted the development of fly larvae, although Dr. Sacks doesn't specify how the ancients kept the horses from eating their bedding. Bracken also poisons mammals, and humans who eat too many fiddle-heads over a long period of time are apt to develop stomach cancer.
It is tempting to open up "Oaxaca Journal" and reread an essay equally as vivid as the riff on the 'Lucrezia Borgia of ferns.' There are so many choices. By writing a journal for the National Geographic 'Literary Travel Series,' Dr. Sacks has opened himself up to every conceivable subject under the blazing Mexican sun.
There is indeed joy in this book.
|
|
|
|
|
