- Hardcover: 1 pages
- Publisher: Virago (Feb 3 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1860498914
- ISBN-13: 978-1860498916
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 358 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,327,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
"I am not a travel writer in any reasonable sense of the word," Diski confesses. "I do not feel compelled to bring the world to people, or meet interesting characters, or enlarge my circle of acquaintance. I just want to drift in the actual landscape of my destination." Despite the disclaimer, the British novelist (Only Human) does all of the above in this eloquent exploration of the psyche America's and her own. The work is divided into two parts. Journey One begins aboard a transatlantic cargo ship where Diski is among a handful of passengers en route to Savannah, Ga. From there, she takes Amtrak to Arizona. Journey Two takes place a year later as Diski circumnavigates the U.S. from New York's Penn Station to Portland, Ore., and back, stopping in the suburbs of Albuquerque to stay in the backyard trailer of a friend from the first sojourn. As in the Hitchcock thriller of (almost) the same title, strangers whom Diski befriends in the smoking sections, or "sin bins," of the trains divulge the details of their lives; Diski, however, plays it close to the vest, sharing intimacies with readers only about her difficult childhood, struggles with substance abuse and more. "I became remarkably unhappy at having been chosen to survive," she recollects after her first trip, comparing the experience of saying goodbye to her travel mates to leaving the psych ward of England's Lady Chichester Hospital at age 14. As she did in Skating to Antarctica: A Journey to the End of the World (1998), Diski again blurs the borders between traditional travelogue and memoir to create a transcendent work.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
English novelist Diski (Only Human) mixes memoir and travelog in a sharp, vivid, but ultimately disappointing narrative written around two train journeys, one across the southern United States and the other around its perimeter. She begins each journey with seeming enthusiasm, but before long, she starts feeling that she has opened herself up too much to strangers. She then panics and withdraws, needing to hide away in her tiny cabin on the train. A short visit to the home of a woman she meets on the first journey ends in paranoid terror when Diski becomes convinced that the family won't let her leave. Intermittently, she flashes back to other times in her life, including an unhappy childhood and several episodes of severe depression. The places she visits (Phoenix, Chicago, Jacksonville) are entirely incidental to the story, the scenery is best seen through a train window, if at all, and the people she meets are unremarkable. In the end, Diski seems happiest when exiled to a dingy smoking car puffing desperately on a cigarette, heading home. Not a priority purchase. Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Very poor not a great Travel Book
April 18 2004
Format:Paperback
This is the first book I've read by Jenni Diski, and I'm told it's not typical of her work. Certainly this was disappointing. It's not a conventional travelogue; in fact after 70 pages (25% of the book) she still hadn't got on the train!
Throughout she shows a brief insight into the personality of a dozen fellow passengers, but spends more time describing her problems gasping for a cigarette - hasn't she heard of nicotine patches?
In 8 lines (lines, not pages) she dismisses the whole journey from Portland Oregon to Sacramento to Denver to Albuquerque - and she doesn't even mention Nevada & Utah. Was she asleep the whole time? Then Arizona to New York via New Orleans vanishes in a dozen pages with 2 anecdotes. Was she bored? I'm surprised this won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award?
I love travelling around America, but anyone could make it more exciting than this.
Is this a travel book or a memoir?
Nov 15 2003
Format:Paperback
Subtitle to this book is "daydreaming and smoking around America with interruptions." The author travels by freighter from England to the U.S., then around the edges of the U.S. by train. She talks to people and records their conversations, most of which take place in the trains' smoking sections. None of them are particularly interesting. I read the whole book, but found it narcisistic (she admits she's a narcisist) full of tales about her days in English mental institutions, and not that entertaining. PLUS: get her an editor - please. It's Willie Mays, not Willie May. It's St.Paul-Minneapolis, not St. Paul's-Minneapolis. And the Mississippi river is certainly not in North Dakota. Then there are the English usages. What are pilchards? What is a tannoy? One person she meets says what he'd like to do with his life is "mess about on boats." No American would say that. If you want to read a good travel book, stick to Paul Theroux. If you want an interesting memoir look elsewhere.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Well worth the read
July 1 2006
Format:Hardcover
I enjoyed Diski's self revelations and conversations with Americans on her cross country train trips. Yes, she clearly needs her cigarettes, and yes, she discusses what are clearly uncomfortable settings of her own mental health, but people, her writing is fantastic, and she creates a definite view of what train travel in the US is like these days. The reviewer that wonders what happened in certain legs of the journey needs to realize that yes, one does sleep on the train and certain geography is doomed to be missed in such a trip. THis book is less about the external geography and more about the internal geography the authors sees with her traveling compatriots across America. A wonderful look at Americans and at an author examining herself while traveling.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Excellent book
Aug 30 2008
Format:Hardcover
This is a wonderful author. Her books are entertaining, valuable and insightful. Highly recommended.
This book in particular gives one the pleasure of a train trip without suffering through Amtrak delays. A must-read to train travel fanciers.
This book in particular gives one the pleasure of a train trip without suffering through Amtrak delays. A must-read to train travel fanciers.
Solitude up in smoke
Sep 23 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A militant solitaire with a quirky passion for traveling in circles (literally) being "entertained" by strangers as if they were coin-operated. Some great quotes in this book about Alone Time. Ended without an end, however...like a train just seemed to run out of steam.
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