SARA WHEELER
1 a wonderfull book
For anyone who want to know more then what is written in a typical travel guide, this book should be read. One get a sense of the mood in Chile and it's people.
It's sprinkeled with British humour and together with how well written this book is, it's delightfull book to read.
2 A travelogue of dysthymia and binge drinking
I bought this book to help in planning my trip to Chile. Unfortunately, much of it is about hanging out with backpackers and gringos. The author's depressive moods and hangovers are given way too much space and somehow taint the book - sometimes it feels like a psychiatric case study, we get to know intimately a not-very-nice person with narcissistic and brooding tendencies.
I left this book unfinished halfway through and then picked it up after my own trip. My own experience of Chile was very different - sunnier, happier, and of course very much briefer. The final chapters of the book, starting from Antarctica, are better. Maybe the book would be better had it been written the other way around. Or maybe just if someone with a lot less emotional baggage had written the same story.
3 Worth the read
Although the writer's attitude might be construed as slightly condescending and arrogant, she is truly a gifted writer who often just teases you with her stories true to mission of "travel literature"--that of encouraging the reader to visit. Her writing style is so eloquent that it is hard to put down. The historical perspective was very helpful in spite of her obvious political leanings. Reading this book might make you concerned for her liver however as she does focus often on the alcohol consumed and the inevitable hangover. I was particularly moved by her chapter on Santiago and the darker side which most travellers would probably never experience. I read it as I travelled through Chile and found it a wonderful companion.
4 Boring, Arrogant, Patronizing. - Blech!
I picked up this book in preparation for my upcoming travels and have been disappointed. It somehow manages to make Chile sound as alluring as a mid west strip mall. Don't waste your time and money.
5 myopic
Having been born in the US and living half my life here, but of Chilean parents and living the other half there, and having a very deep understanding of both the "western" culture (as Miss Wheeler says, as if Chile was in Africa)and Chilean culture, I bought this book out of curiosity. I found it to be deeply condescending and patronizing, and at times even offensive, with no effort on the part of Miss Wheeler to try and understand a culture that is different, but not all that different, from her own. Her views on Chileans are very myopic, and she can not see beyond her own prejudice. This is not a good book for understanding Chile, because she obviously did not understand Chileans, and made no effort to do so.
6 good (ish) tour of chile, but somewhat contrived
Sara Wheelers travels in a thin country is a reasonable travel book through Chile, but it is certainly not an authoritive guide. Having traveled most of the route she chooses, from North to South, prior to reading the book, it was easy to relate to many of her encounters and expeditions. And as such the book serves as a nice reminder, The problem with the book, is that is has been written soley with the ambition of creating a travel book, and this is the reason she set of to Chile in the first place. It lacks a real focus, and it is yet another journalist travels through country to write travel book epic.
The other thing which is striking is the better than thou attitide she displays to other travellers in Chile, she decides not to experience many of the highlights of the gringo trail through Chile such as torees del paine, as she isnt fond of nanging around other gringo backpackers, the excuse she gives is that she has somehow managed to get herself onto a cargo ship north, which is in fact a main route north for backpackers, of course once the captain of the ship finds out she is a journalist he offers to remove her from the confines of the other squalid backpackers, and so on.
Chile is an amzing country and one of the best places to travel on earth, this book certainly is insightful, but theres much more.
7 Mediocre tale
Having lived and traveled in Chile for a number of years I was very interested in reading of another women's travel experiences. I was very disappointed. She was forever recounting her drinking adventures and personal experiences with the various men she met along her way. I would say that her "observations" of Chileans were very skewed and at times offensive. I hope that serious travelers would try to find another source of reading to get a background of Chile.
8 You can Visualize the WHOLE Thing!
As someone who spent a couple of years in Chile and familiar with the geography from Arica down to Puerto Montt, this book is very descriptive; a very good and amusing read. Sara Wheeler's personal exploits, mixed in with travel and fairly detailed maps, provide one with the desire to spend some quality time in Chile. It is definitely worth reading and I would recommend it if you want to know about off-the-path traveling in Chile.
9 Reactionarism
Read "The Long Valley" by John Steinbeck first.
10 Fun and Fast
O.K. Let's all loosen up. Travel writing is supposed to be fun and it's not just about the place traveled to. It's about the people doing the traveling and the place they came from. I read Sara's book while traveling in Chile last month. All of her observations were right on the mark. She didn't go to Easter Island (I did) so I consider that a significant omission. Otherwise, this is a fun and fast book well worth reading.
11 Terrific book!
I didn't want this fantastic book to end. I picked it because I know so little about South America (why did we study it so little in school??) It is factual enough about geography and sociology and politics and history to be worthwhile that way, but as entertainment it's superb. I just couldn't put it down, and regretted her trip ending. She tells enough about herself to be interesting but not tiresome. Some travel writing is really about the writer; not this time. She's a shrewd and appreciative observer in a wide gamut of settings. Her style of writing is very clear, quite interesting , and witty. It's a magical book and I'll read anything else she writes, no matter where she goes!
12 I'm glad this book was written.
I enjoyed this book, having selected it in the travel section because of a fascination with South America since visiting my sister in Brazil and later my wife and I visiting friends in Peru. Chile is particularly interesting because of the unique stretched geography. When I read travel writing I want the writer to be a real person, and Sara Wheeler is. If I wanted a guidebook I would buy one. I don't need pedantic liberal condescending whining either, just tell it like you see it, with a little writerly flourish and a bit of dry wit, which she does, and I for one appreciate it. I think most readers of this book understand that people are people. And anybody who doesn't take advantage of the wine and pisco when in Chile, like her dorky traveling companion who "forgot" to buy the wine, is weird. The people who don't like this book probably don't like Paul Theroux either. The writer did manage to use some words which I never heard before, such as "amaranthine," and some which I think perhaps don't exist, such as "anaglyptic." This, in my book, adds to her qualifications. Let's have some fun with travel writing! One thing, though, that got me is her reference to North America and Europe as "the West," as though South America isn't "the West" as well!
13 Amusing.
Condescending. Patronizing. Oblivious to the obvious. Perplexed by what is different. Entertaining. Sarah Wheeler's written opinions of her trip to Chile would fit into any and all of the categories I've listed. My notes on her book are copious, but they can be summarized. Very much like Stryker McGuire in his book "Streets With No Names," Wheeler is annoyed at the fact that Chile is different in several aspects to other Latin American republics, and she seems honestly surprised that so many things work well within the country. She mentions how effective and helpful the Conaf (Forestry and Parks) workers are, in spite of lack of funds. The Police and the Air Force, even though she does not intend any praise with her comments, appear in her book as effective, professional services. The administration of a love hotel, the administration of an entire town, the administration of an entire park (Torres del Paine National Park), and the administration of what in Chile is known as 'Chilean Antartic Territory', all share one thing in common: they are good, run by dedicated people. She is honest in recording her reactions to these quite amazing revelations: imagine! A Latin American country where things work rather well! As if to wake herself up from this challenging nightmare, she refers constantly to a Chilean sense of inferiority and a national obsession with the British royal family. Her first "adventure" in Santiago is to a love hotel, where an employee is described as a "cockroach." She rightly frowns upon Pinochet comparing himself to Jesus, but she has already compared Allende to Jesus, so the net effect is amusing and more instructive of the author's prejudices than of her "keen" insight. There are parts that are true: rain in Santiago that floods the city; O'Higgins being forced out by the oligarchy. Her opinions about Neruda are courageous, since it is difficult to find anyone alive who will say that he was not a good poet. I think he was a great poet, but I can't stand his political convictions. For the most part, though, her book reads like what it is: a European facing a reality in Chile other than her prejudices and preconceptions dictated, alone, craving the company of "her own people," unable to understand the natives, and attempting to contact only those whose political ideas seem closest to her own. Thus, when faced with nothing but generosity and help from Police officers in a remote outpost, she must go to the sewer and compare the man in charge of the outpost to Pol Pot: a Chilean Carabinero is worst than a Cambodian murderer of at least one million people because the Chilean has a sticker of Pinochet. This is a very twisted, sick way of looking at the world and at those who do not agree with our political ideas and the book reaches its lowest point here. In the end, Wheeler is no better than those Britons she describes as convinced that Chileans are savages. The fast, efficient, hardworking Chile bothers her. She seems to wish a more typically Latin American way of life for Chile. McGuire put it very well in his chapter on Chile in the book mentioned before. He said that after a while in the long country, he missed the disorderly, relaxed, unfinished, late, even lazy way of doing things in most of Latin America. Wheeler doesn't say that because she doesn't seem able to pinpoint what really bothers her about Chile. But her unintentional praise for many institutions while trying to portray them negatively betrays her: if only Chile and its natives were, well, more "native,", more close to her British -and European- idea of what those dark, poor masses should be throughout Latin America, then she would feel better. If that were the case, Chile would not be Chile, and Wheeler's book wouldn't be so unintentionally amusing.
14 Very discriptive but too many personal political views.
I find the political views of Ms. Wheeler's Great Britian angle is annoying, although she emphasizes that this is her own observation about the country. If she could limit her elaboration of her obvious drinking problem and other intimate personal matters, this should be a wonderful book for readers who have never been to this amazing country.
15 Very discriptive but too many personal political views.
I find the political views of Ms. Wheeler's Great Britian angle is annoying, although she emphasizes that this is her own observation about the country. If she could limit her elaboration of her obvious drinking problem and other intimate personal matters, this should be a wonderful book for readers who have never been to this amazing country.
16 How to travel around Chile in a bad mood: A Guide.
Wheeler exhibits an admirable sense of trip curiosity. She has a keen eye for observation that does justice to the amazing country she crosses. She effectively builds up our anticipation of the glaciers and the icefields of the south of the country throughout the book as well.
But for all that curiosity, she kept coming up with inventive ways to alienate her audience. I tried to put my personality issues with her aside and enjoy the travelogue but her low tolerance for travel situations kept returning to the narrative. She seemed to go on the trip preparing to be annoyed, and many things she came across helped her fulfill that prophecy. She was annoyed by travel companions, who were then vilified in her book. She was annoyed by long dusty bus trips, machismo issues, etc. She was annoyed by the lack of British precision when it came to bus/train schedules. And she kept quoting Bruce Chatwin, a truly brilliant writer who also wrote a book about Chile, as if she was trying to crab her way into his company. By the end of the book I was getting so annoyed that I started wishing she would run out of money and wouldn't get a chance to experience the south.
This woman has a huge chip on her shoulder that undermined the narrative and prevented me from enjoying the read. If you are interested in this part of the world, please read something instead of this! Start with Chatwin's "Travels in Patagonia." You'll be much happier.
17 Vapid, Pedantic, Amateurish
"London was not all vapid dissipation."-V.S. Pritchett
I have no complaint about the technical writing in this travelogue, although the author does fracture the 'past perfect tense' occasionally.
I do find the book grossly superficial in its intended coverage of a culture rich in tradition, diversity, and spirit.
Sara Wheeler strikes me as a 'wannabe' Erica Jong ("Fear of Flying").
After taking a crash course in Spanish (Her "Spanish had gone rusty, and anyway it was the Spanish spoken in Spain." Hmm.....), she travels for the first time to Chile, leaving the reader with an initial impression of Santiago: her description of a 'love hotel'. (as if such places were unique to Chile)
Most of the people that she writes about at length are Westerners, Chilean exiles, or 'burned-out' Chilean hippies. We rarely meet a Chilean in the mainstream of society, past or present.
Instead, the book is replete with tiresome references to:
---Wheeler's drinking, or hangovers ---The assorted men she met and toured Chile with (e.g. Matthew, James) ---The ages of those she met, most 'about her age', or 'roughly her age', although the author never tells us until the very end of the book how old she was at the time (as if we cared) ---Her feeling about the "dubious' attitude toward women" of many men she met (oddly, she rarely interviews or spends much time with any Chilean women, nor describes their intelligence, beauty, or the role they played in the tumultuous politics of the 70's ---the feeling of others that she (Wheeler) resembles Princess Diana
Here's what Wheeler has to say about Pablo Neruda, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971, and whom Gabriel Garcia Marquez called "the greatest poet of the twentieth century, in any language."
"He had a fine aesthetic sensibility, which I couldn't help reflecting is often absent from his poems." "I didn't think he was a very good poet." "Once I read more of his prose I decided I didn't like him much either." "He had a dubious attitude toward women."
The author obviously has a political axe to grind--there is nothing wrong with that, but her diatribes against the Pinochet regime become a drone of loaded language and one-sided accounts lacking perspective.
"James wanted to photograph it (a sign from the police of Chile wishing passersby a Merry Christmas), but he was too frightened to get out of the jeep in case a policemen shot him."
I might have tolerated these flaws but could not ignore the pat, superficial and at times condescending way in which the author describes Chile and Chileans:
When a waiter, displaying the inimitable hospitality of the Chileans, invites Wheeler and her boyfriend to a New Year's eve party in his home, the author writes:
"James and I were obliged to dance with everyone, and we were even made to dance the 'cueca'."
When the author visits the Tololo observatory, regarded as one of the world's finest, she dwells on the bureaucracy and difficulty involved in getting there (an incessant theme), and recalls the story of a Japanese who traveled to Tololo but 'clouds prevented him from seeing anything', centering her vignette on the presumed pleasure of the guide who amused his audience with this tale of woe.
When touring the newsroom of 'La Prensa' in Curico, she writes that "the hacks shrank behind their manual typewriters and looked hunted."
To Wheeler, Antofagasta was a "grubby, lustreless hole", and Tongoy "impressively devoid of character"...."even the sand was inferior"....; "Shifty individuals sidled in to sell wet handkerchiefs' (sic) full of illegally caught 'locos'............."
She detects "more than a trace of an inferiority complex on the part of the Chileans."
She points out that Chileans always wanted to know what "we of the West" thought of the country." (as if Chile were not located in the Western hemisphere)
Wheeler would have us believe that she sympathizes with the plight of the Chilean poor, and perhaps she does, but she had no trouble roaming around for much of the time she was in Chile in the upscale neighborhoods and bars of Santiago, hobnobbing with the expatriates, parvenu, and pseudo-leftists who were her hosts.
If this book were all I had to guide me vicariously through a wonderful country, I'd turn to the soap operas or the demolition derby. This book is hardly worth the paper it is printed on.
18 Too much space between the covers
I came away from this book acutely aware of Ms. Wheeler's political leanings but with little insight into Chileans. The author struck me as quite immature and the book would have been better if she hadn't the desire to wear her politics on her sleeve. A travel writer - a good travel writer - ought to be free of the very prejudices Ms. Wheeler holds (e.g., her dislike of Australian men and Americans>. Although obviously talented, I hope this writer in time learns to write more about the places she visits and less about herself.
19 An in-depth description of a very interesting country.
I found this book very interesting in describing the cultures, geography and customs of Chile. At certain times the book went into too much detail for my liking but on the whole I found it very interesting. It is not only a book about Chile but about travelling, itself, in Chile
I received it as a present as I am intending to travel to Chile in a year and the book has only further fuelled my interest about the country.
20 One of the few good travel essays on Chile
I have spent a considerable amount of time in Chile, both for work and for travel. My trips have covered the country from Arica in the North to Cape Horn in the South, from the Pacific Coast to the high Andes. Wheeler's book, which I found in a bookshop in Cape Town a few years ago, presents a beautiful, humorous, unflinching portrait of a country and its people. For a place that offers so many opportunities and adventures to the traveller, it is surprising how little has been written (in English) about the country and its people. There are some mis-statements in the book, but by and large it makes an excellent companion to a typical "country guidebook".
21 an interesting travel book
I'm an exchange student living in Chile, and a fellow exchange gave me the book to read (simply because it was the only book she had in English). I read it in 2 days, parts of it i simply skipped because they bored me so much, but other parts made me want to do the exact same thing, although she had quite a few advantages (connections, a press card). A good book, but hard reading in some parts, and i found that it didn't always give me a true picture of what i have found Chile to be.
22 Many interesting insights but does give one a feel for Chile
I wanted to like this book and I routinely give all travel books a wide berth but I found this one disappointing. Maybe it was a personality conflict with the author. That being said, I found the book quite self-indulgent. The author seemed as interested in writing about her self and her parade of gentlemen friends -- many not Chilean -- than giving us a feel for the country and its people. A great deal about human interactions that seem typical of travel anywhere. Not enough about what is uniquely Chilean. Even then introspective parts seemed superficial. The trip on Antartica was interesting and she does weave in a fair amount of historical information.
23 A good mix of travel and history
Mrs Wheeler takes you to places most tourists can only dream about. Mixed with some political history, this book gives you the real Chile.
Read her book about Antarctica aswell!
24 19th Century Chilean History - 101
As an avid reader of travel essays, I must say this was by far the most boring and tedious read I have experienced in quite some time. I was hoping to share intimately in Ms. Wheeler's travels and experiences in Chile but instead came away with an intimate knowledge of 19th century Chilean history. Instead of taking us along for her journey, the author uses brief snipets of her travels to launch into often detailed aspects of Chilean history. While some of this might have helped the book and her story, it soon overwhelms the reader in boring facts and figures.
Ms. Wheeler would have better served her audience if she would have bared her soul a little more and let us share her experiences in the many months she spent roaming Chile.
25 A book for which you will want to thank her for writing.
I finished this book only a day after I had discovered it on a friends bookshelf, but even before the end I had this incredible urge to try and phone Sara Wheeler to thank her for an amazing book. Seldom have I ever book a book down and thought to myself, 'thank the stars that this book is out there for other people to discover', and trust me it will be a rare treat for those who do. I now have two travel books to unreservedly recommend to friends, this one and Eric Newby's 'Slowly Down the Ganges'. Sara, if ever we are in someone else's neck of the woods at the same time I'll buy you a beer or twelve!
26 A tale without heart
I was very disappointed in this book. My hopes were high for being introduced to a country I had always wondered about. Chile always seemed like such an oddity to me. But after about 50 pages, it became apparent that the author's narrative dealt more with the logistics of getting from place to place than it did with the people she met and how they affected her. She reports everything with a matter-of-fact, linear style that becomes tedious and never really helps the reader put a finger on the pulse of this country or its people. The characters who loom largest are fellow travelers, like herself, who are not even natives.
Her account is also unevenly populated with mini-history lessons. Although it is obvious these are intended to lend perspective to her story, these passages frequently read like a college textbook. I lost patience and got bored. One of the very few books I have actually put down before finishing.
I also bought her book on Antartica at the same time; I hope that one is better.
27 Excellent travel writing
Sara Wheeler is a compelling travel writer. Being British she does have an odd twist to the language, at least for this North American reader. She travels well, meets interesting people and is no shrinking violet in visiting the out-of-the-ordinary. Her sensibilities regarding the reprehensible Pinochet regime are current, especially considering her own country's recent actions toward the old goat. Sara Wheeler has a good travel eye and she reads very well. I personally hope to meet up with her somewhere along the line and enjoy a cold one with her. Thanks for a really good read.
28 Estupendo!
I bought the book from a bookstore in Heatrow Airport on the way to Santiago de Chile for a vacation. I started reading when I came back and found it quite interesting and felt that I did not see the real face of Chile. The book gives you details on the different geographies and cultures that she encountered on the way that no one would find in other travel books. I quite enjoyed it though sometimes I had some difficulty in understanding. I wish to be as brave as her. Thanks Sara for opening up the thin, strange, beautiful country to us!
29 Wonderfully, insightful look at a little known country
Discovered the book in a London book store several years ago. The author was unknown but I have always been fascinated by the lower South American countries. Ms. Wheeler is a deligtful story teller who because of her knowledge of Spanish and sense of adventure exposes the reader to the many varied aspects of this little known country. I had not fully appreciated how varied the country's terrain was or the variety of people who have settled. I was sorry to hear that it is out of stock. Greatly recommend it if one can find a copy
