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Loading... From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outbackby Robyn Davidson
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Large-format volume which combines extracts from TTracks' (1980), Davidson's bestselling account of her journey by camel through central Australia, with photographs of the trek by photographer Smolan, the creator of the TDay in the Life' series. A compact disc is included which when played on a CD-player presents an audio reading of the extracts from TTracks'. When played on a Macintosh CD-ROM player, the CD produces an interactive, computer version of the book which includes many additional images and a commentary by Smolan. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)919.40463History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in Australasia, Pacific Ocean islands, Atlantic Ocean islands, Arctic islands, Antarctica and on extraterrestrial worlds Australia Travel 1966-1999 1975-1983LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Robyn Davidson's journey began in Alice Springs and lead her across the Australian desert all the way to the ocean. She made the journey with her four camels and her dog. It was a journey she felt she needed to take, for reasons that were deep rooted and not even fully known to herself. In one of her opening paragraphs, she wrote:
Davidson faced innumerable challenges in simply preparing for this trip, one of which being what she called "the cult of maschismo" that exists in Australia. Because no white men had ever been able to make the journey she was about to undertake, no one believed that a woman would be able to do it. So she met incredible resistance in trying to just get the training to work with camels and to earn the money to fund her journey.
The challenge of money was eventually solved when she received funding from National Geographic. It was a decision she immediately regretted. While she would not be able to make the journey without this funding, Davidson felt like a sell out. Now a photographer would be joining her at points of her trip, therefore eliminating the solitude she had hoped for (having a photographer around at times also created problems with the Aborigines, whom she also hoped to connect with).
Davidson, like the Aborigines, makes a strong distinction between tourists and travelers. Tourists being the kind of people who suck up the scenery, are glued to their cameras, and are often rude. Tourists don't care for the people or the cultures they are disrupting. While a traveler is respectful. This notion can be a little confronting to some readers, I'm sure. It just made me sad and made me think about how I travel and behave when I'm outside of the U.S.
Tied into this is the discussion of how the Aboriginal culture has been abused, made quaint by news and photographers, while many of those same news outlets did not care what was actually happening to these people -- how their culture was slipping away and how they keep getting relegated to worse and worse lands.
Whether or not you agree with her political views, at least Davidson makes you think on multiple levels and I would love to have some discussions with someone who has read this book.
I felt deeply for Davidson on her journey. Her writing allows you to connect with her and her experience, bringing you right down into the dust of the desert with her. I came to love the contradictory nature of her emotional experience and how she could swing from perfect bliss of the moment to wanting to throttle some tourist. She's funny and real and doesn't (seem to) pretend to be anything other than herself.
The only major flaw of From Alice to Ocean, as far as I'm concerned, was that is was merely the abstracts from Tracks, necessitating the need to go read the full story and get more details of the journey. However, I would argue that From Alice to Ocean is an excellent companion to the story. One of the interesting things about it was the way the photographs told a completely different story from the text. At times Davidson railed against the the photographer in her writing, hating having him there, although keeping quiet because he's a nice guys. Also, the pictures are often a lie, painting a beautiful, though highly romantic notion of the journey that was contrary to her actual experience. (Yet another layer to the possible discussions one could have about this book.)
This emotionally and intellectually complex, but ultimately fulfilling, journey is well worth a read. ( )