Jeremy SealReviews

I have been fascinated by snakes ever since childhood and read whatever I can get me=y hands on and this definitely ranks high. A self-proclaimed phobic journeys to the heart of darkness for people like him, snake handling religious cults bith here and in India, among other places and takes you along for the ride. It is funny exciting and fascintaing .

I put this out for seasonal decoration because the cover is pretty but started reading it. This is a biography of The development of Saint Nicholas into his non religious incarnation as Santa Claus. The history of the church, the mutations of the saint and the history of the lands influenced by Nicholas were quite interesting. However, I was irritated by the author’s take that Nicholas controlled and developed his posthumous legend. I found that idea irrational and it made my Protestant high horse all out of sorts. Neigh, nay!

Seal has a thing about Turkey, and in this book he he's decided to follow the entire length of the River Meander for source to mouth in a canoe and on foot. This is a gently winding river is the origin of the word.

He takes a gentle and relaxed approach to the journey down this river valley, taking time to meet the people and characters along the route. It is a place that is rich in history as well, from people such as Alexander the Great to the knights on the crusades.

In parts this book is fascinating, when he is meeting and interacting with the people of the valley. He writes about the the state of the river and the problems that are caused by pollution and extraction of the water, which has brought the river down to a trickle in parts.

There are one or two amusing bits in the book, but i felt that there was too much history in the book, rather than the travel, and for that reason it doesn't sparkle as a good travel book should.

I rather like this book. Jeremy Seal weaves history, culture and anecdote around the theme of the fez. The hat is just a vehicle for the rest, an interesting way of linking the various elements of the book, even if it does get a little irritating after a while.½

This is a fascinating, informative and well written mix of travel and history. Highly recommended.

The descriptions of Turkey are wonderful! It was nice to feel as though I was traveling while reading a book. I especially like the author's visit to the rooftop chapel, Lapland, and the bus ride through England. The descriptions of Italy could have been better.

I thought that the narration was a bit strange. The author has written the book as though St. Nicholas intended to become famous and morph into Santa Claus.

I would not recommend this book for children because it makes several references to prostitution and contains quotes with foul language in one chapter. However, the story of St. Nicholas could not be told without mention of that theme.

There are two essentials to any great travel book. Firstly a passion for the place and the people, and secondly the ability to share the experience with the reader. Seal's love (and knowledge) of Turkey is clear, but the storytelling is slow, overly-dense and indigestible. If ever a story needed leavening, or a better editor, this is it. I sampled several chapters, and put it back on the shelf for a much rainier day. The detail redeems it - sort of, but not recommended for any but the most passionate consumers of Turkish travel stories.½

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Book Report: Author Jeremy Seal, British of course, found an elderly fex in his parents' attic and, in true Brit fashion, became obsessed with Turkey. I mean, what else is possible when one finds a fez in the attic?

I think an American would be more interested in how the fez got there, which parent had the Turkish man as a lover, what the hell the thing was...not leap straight into Turkophilia. But us colonials, we're just not as finely tuned as the Motherlanders to the nuances of life.

In other words; we're sane.

So off Jezza goes, in 1993 mind you, as a grown man, to indulge his peculiar obsession. He arrives in a Turkey that resembles the fez-wearing Turkey of his childhood interest very little. The story he tells us as we tag along with him on his voyage of discovery is that of Turkey's utterly fascinating reinvention of itself after the Great War swept away empire and sultan all in a day. We meet Turks old and young, and to a one they are as crotchety and odd as one could wish them to be. In the end, the hat that brought Jeremy Seal to Turkey is his personal madeleine, the key to memory and knowledge.

My Review: I like stuff about Turkey because I think it's one of the most interesting places on the surface of the earth. I've liked every Turk I've met, too, and dated one Turk for a year or so. I went into reading this book, on a friend's recommendation, with all sorts of goodwill and eagerness.

I came out with all the goodwill and none of the eagerness.

I like the book, don't get me wrong. I quite enjoyed the capsule Turkish history, I was amused by the cultural divide the author frequently fell into, and I was kept reading by the author's evident love for his subject.

I don't like Jeremy Seal. Not even a little bit. I think he comes across as a snotty little prig, a self-absorbed twit, and an obsessive-compulsive hat fetishist. If I met him in the flesh, I would not be inclined to linger, but rather to escape.

And that, sad to say, is my take-away from this very nice book. It overrode the pleasures of Turkophilia, which I too have, and left me with Sealophobia. I think that's a damn shame.

Not really about "SANTA," this book traces the history of the spread of influence of St. Nicholas from present-day Turkey to Greece, Italy, and Russia, and then into the Netherlands. Only then, in the closing chapters of the book, does the concept of the gift-giving "SANTA" come into play. Interesting, but a bit misleading as to the title and cover. The history of Santa is only briefly covered.

With keen powers of observation & description and not a little trepidation, Seal sets out across continents and cultures in search of the modern folklore surrounding the world’s deadliest snakes. The prose is lively and the humor dry and self-deprecating. All in all, Seal succeeds in rendering the fear and fascination that these creatures inspire in the human imagination.

Popular nineteenth-century cures for snakebite included gunpowder, which was heaped on the wound and then ignited. Bite victims were known to remove the bitten extremity with an axe or even a loaded gun. Leeches, on account of their sucking ability, were often applied to bites. On the principle that the application of a second poison would neutralize the first, strychnine, mercury, ammonia and ‘chlorine of gold’ all enjoyed spells of popularity. The juice of banana leaves had its supporters, as did the urine of toads or even immersion in cattle manure. And massive quantities of alcohol, even more than was generally downed as a daily salve against the brutish realities of nineteenth-century Australian life, were regarded as an excellent cure for snakebite.

Saranac Black Forest Bavarian Ale
Atlantic Coal Porter

"She stood beneath oaks and sycamores on high ground, close to the lych-gate and the stone outhouse that formed the graveyard's southeast corner. A train of celandines lay at her feet. She was dressed in a tam-o'-shanter and a sporran, and held a cutlass and a round shield on which a flowering thistle was carved. A sash hung from her left shoulder, and beneath it was a glimpse of chain like mermaid scales. Painted white she was almost life-size."

On a trip to Morwenstow, England, Jeremy Seal finds a wooden ship figurehead propped up as a gravemarker and wonders how she came to be on dry land. His investigation leads him to the Caledonia, a ship wrecked off the coast in 1842. After searching through local records, he begins to suspect the locals were 'wreckers' who purposely ran the ship aground, looted it and possibly killed its crew. But he needs evidence and while the coast has a history of shipwrecks, it's difficult to prove his theory. While searching through Morwenstow, Seal recreates what life might have been like on board the Caledonia and how they might have met their tragic end.

Seal has a way with words, as evidenced by the quote above. His writing has a lyrical, haunting quality to it that adds to the recreation of the shipwreck. As well, Seal gives the reader a taste of shipboard life in the 19th century. We follow his search through church records, microfiche and local legends. Piece by piece he constructs a narrative of what might have happened but the amount of time that's passed leaves large holes in his body of evidence.

The problem with this book was, it could have been great. But Seal has so little real information to go on that he ends up padding the book. This includes the recreation, which at most is general and best guess as to what really happened during the shipwreck. But the recreation takes up the majority of the book, with the Seal's search for evidence a poor runner-up. Ultimately the ending was unsatisfactory with no real payoff.

Not what I expected, but an interesting read nonetheless. It traces the familiar Christmas figure from his humble beginnings as Nicholas of Myra, sainted for working miracles and for acts of great generosity and charity. It follows the path his name took after his death, and how his bones were moved from place to place as miraculous relics. These chapters grew difficult to follow at times because of the many ancient and religious groups mentioned, and the sheer number of unfamiliar place names. Seal’s tendency to talk about the long-dead Nicholas as if he were consciously moving from place to place in his need to make his name known was also irritating.

The last few chapters were more enjoyable, as the story grew more familiar and a recognisable Father Christmas emerged. The rise of commercialism and Santa’s settling in Lapland are explored, as well as how the modern child relates to him. Here I had hoped for a little more analysis of Santa as a commercial phenomenon, and of his various incarnations around the modern world – but I enjoyed it anyway, particularly the magical moment when Seal’s daughters meet Santa in a little wooden forest hut in Lapland… A worthwhile December read.½

I read this a long time ago so the briefness of this review is a result of my less-than-perfect memory! I had higher expectations for this book than it delivered. I thought it would be an interesting and quirky read but it fell short on all elements. It wasn't an awful book, just a mediocre one. I felt that it tried to be too many things in one package and that meant that it was neither a travel memoir nor an interesting study of the individuals written about nor an interesting piece about snakes (although there are some pretty pictures!). It's an 'almost there' book which I find irritating because there are glimpses of what it could be.½

This book sounded fascinating, but the author jumps around topics, throws in long stories that have barely anthing to do with the topic, is fond of sentence fragments, and refers to Indians as coolies! My advice would be not to waste your time on this terrible book.½

If you love snakes and are deathly afraid of them, this book is perfect. I was skeptical, but this is some great writing and story telling involving some of the deadliest snakes in the world, including The Black Mamba, the inland Taipan, the King Cobra, and the Western Diamondback.

The author takes Turkey's famed hat as an organizing principle for an in-depth look at modern Turkey and it's divides. Although a decade old now, it remains up-to-date in its examination of the tensions between Muslims and secularists in Turkey. The Fez began as a reformist sultan's attempt to Westernize his country - but then was abolished by Ataturk, who wanted to be even more Western. Earnest discussion of the symbolism of headgear is balanced here by some laugh-out-loud travel experiences with Turks young and old.½