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This was one of the most delightful travel books ever. Not only do you get a glimpse of the entire country, from north to south, but you get a real social feel for class differences between the oligarchy and the poor. The author has a great sense of humor, which is always a plus.
I eagerly snatched up this book, as there aren't that many armchair travel books about Chile. Though I wasn't expecting or even hoping for the liveliest of writing, I found it dull in both presentation and choice of material. Unfortunately I just got bogged down with this one (twice). and couldn't finish it, and I'm an avid reader who can slog through most any book. Too bad. Two stars for choosing an interesting, beautiful country to write about.
Sara Wheeler, that's who. She tells us, for example, that the Chilean population is riddled with anti-semitism: she could easily have picked up that idea from talking with her wealthy friends, but as a description of the population as a whole it is complete nonsense.Who could visit Lake Chungura in the far north of Chile without finding anything at all to say about its beauty.
The central problem is that she doesn't seem to have decided what sort of book she was trying to write. A travel book may fall into one of three genres: a tourist guide, an analysis of the political and social character of the country visited, or an account of the adventures experienced by the author.
This is a 2006 reissue of a book written more than ten years earlier, and in her introduction to the reissue the author describes it as a young woman's book, but she is too kind: a rather silly and ignorant book would be more accurate. One has the impression that her main objective was to confirm the ideas she had before going to Chile, and within Chile she stayed (amongst other places, of course) at the British Embassy and on the estates of very wealthy people, where no doubt, she was able to confirm her prejudices.
Sara Wheeler doesn't appear to have had any adventures, so the third of these is a non-starter, but her book fails in both of the other two as well: it has too few descriptions of the places visited and too many accounts of the conversations she had about politics to succeed as a tourist guide; as a social and political analysis it has much too much chit-chat. In any case case her knowledge of Chile is very superficial -- the kind of thing she would have heard from her political exile friends in London before she went, rather than things she saw with her own eyes.
Who could pass through the Region de los Lagos in the south, but refrain from stopping because she didn't think it would tell her much about Chile. She mentions (correctly) that the Region de los Lagos is a favourite place for Chilean people to go on vacation, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that seeing where ordinary people go on vacation and what they do there would tell her more about the ordinary life of the country than visiting a military base in the Antarctic.All in all a very disappointing book, with very little of interest to say.
Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library)A very intertaining journal of travels through Chile.
Nevertheless there's a lot of background information about the country which may be useful to you. Sometimes she's funny in a very British manner, but it rarely lasts more than one sentence at a time. Her contacts in Santiago, some at the British Embassy and some filthy rich families, Chile's de facto aristocracy, gives her access to interesting people and a level of luxury that "normal" travellers seldom encounter.So reading the book is not the best way to figure out what you can expect to see and do on your own trip through Chile. Whereas I just left home, Sara apparently first spent much time learning Spanish and gathering a network of contacts in Chile, including a number of official tourist offices that gave her free or cheap accommodation and transportation, very briefly mentioned here and there. Since I did a similar trip to the one in this book a few years ago, I was curious to see whether Sara and I also had the same experience. It just wouldn't add any value to the tale. She only spent one day there, being guided by Chilean officials in and around a tiny settlement. Also, she goes to "Chilean Antarctica", but there's not much of value to be gathered from reading her account of it.
I often travel like that, and although it may seem like a stupid/crazy thing to do to some people, travelling in certain regions often means suddenly sharing a car/tent/meal with people you just met the day before. All the destinations she mentions are still very much open to tourism, and you get a general idea of what they are like. We didn't. One of the other reviewers appears to find Sara rather promiscuous, going off with one man after the other on, well, overnight adventures to remote places. Also because she did her trip in the early 1990s, so a LOT has changed since then. I was disappointed that she only spent half a day in Torres del Paine, which to me was the most beautiful spot in the country. Although I'm sure there must have been short-term romance in the air at times, I certainly don't think less of Sara for not "admitting" it in her book.
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