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Summary: Dan Eldon's life continues to inspire....
Review: The life of Dan Eldon continues to inspire an open-hearted examination of our species. Why do those who simply wish to help humanity have to lose their lives? Why does man continue to communicate through use of violence? This journal is the beautiful, tragic adventure of a life that could not simply buy and sell existence. A compassion journey with meaning. Dan Eldon's life will continue to educate even if humans are not ready to learn.*Paul Ginocchio
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Summary: Dan, I miss you
Review: I read the book in an overwhelming feeling. His works are like shapes and colors writhing in pleasure and agony of life. I somehow shivered, feeling as if I touched the very bottom of his heart. I met him in 1992 while I was going to school in Iowa. He was a very handsome young man who loved to play practical jokes (he even made me somersault in public), but he had a serious side too. Once he told me about non-white caucasians underestimating their beauty. He said, "All media feature white people like a standard of beauty. It's dangerous. How can you realize you are beautiful if you are non-white and have to see it all the time?" Dan, half British and half American brought up in Kenya, had this fair attitude, which I believe was nurtured by his global experience. I liked his seriousness that he showed sometimes. He left to Africa after three month stay in Iowa. On the last day in US, he gave me a couple of kisses and a big hug, which he called "European greeting." For some reasons, I said goodbye in stead of see you, which I usually love to say. It makes me regret. It's been almost five years since his loss, but I still can't help thinking "how would he look now? What would he be doing...if only he wasn't in Somalia in the summer of 1993?"
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Summary: From Biography:
Review: "It's all too easy to envision this idealistic young photographer desperately seeking that single sympathetic face in the mob he met on the day of his death. And it is ultimately on such a personal level that The Journey is the Destination succeeds as a powerful and poignant memoir. It is impossible to read through Eldon's words and to look at his photographs and collages without wondering what kind of mature artist he would have become, and mourning the loss of such promise."
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Summary: I became envious as I turned the pages
Review: When I am dead and gone how will my art work exist? This thought isn't one that I ever conssciously consider, but Dan Eldon's journals raise the question about art works having a life of their own. The magical and mysterious book that fell practically into my hands gave me immediate access into the the intimate life of Dan Eldon. Eldon, was a "Reuters photographer that was stoned to death in Somalia in July 1993 by a mob reacting to the United Nations bombing raid on the suspected headquaters of General Mohammed Farah Aidid. Only Twenty-two when he died, Dan already achieved prominience for his work as a war photographer. But his photographs told only half the story. The other half lay hidden away in seventeen black-bound journals filled with collages,writings,drawings,and photographs"(Eldon p5). The books are like travel-logs with imagery that Eldon actively creates with either his camera or his hands producing personal knowledge of the artist's life. The work is fun to look at. The densely layered pages and the visual wit that Eldon forms causes an instant attraction quality. It is like what poets look for----travel, freedom, exotic places, and the imagery and text does not indulge in the boredom and loneliness associated with travel. Words are covered over by pictures and pictures are covered by words telling stories of adventure by bits and pieces that the viewer must put together. The work Dan Eldon produced in his sketch books is not like anyone else's because it is a record of a particular individual's life and thoughts. It is like a collection of some kind, stored in a closet waiting to be found. The young death of Eldon makes the work meaningful because it cannot continue but only influence anyone who invests the time in exploring this person's life.
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Summary: It helps one realize the importance of living a full life
Review: I met Dan in Berlin. He was engrosed in his art-form. This book is a shocking but pleasent reminder of how he attempted life - with every color available.
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Summary: Not bad, but Peter Beard did it first.
Review: Dan Eldon's diaries are interesting, and his mother is to be commended for publicizing his work. However, one hopes the photographer/author/artist/adventurer Peter Beard is receiving royalties from this book, since Eldon's diaries are pale imitations of the diaries Beard has been making for decades.
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Summary: The Journey Is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon
Review: If you are expecting an extensive journal of his life adventures, you will be disappointed, as I was somewhat. It is more a work of art, a collage or scrapbook of several trips. His writing and handwritten notes are few and short. But, for me, it instantly became an idea of one more way I can remember my 17 year old daughter who died this past August. I had already started putting scrapbooks together, so this book gave me more creative ways to do it! My Juli had also written in a few journals, and now I see a creative way to put pieces of them together as a story of her life with photos, her art work and some memorabilia. Yes, a collage book is developing at my house, but without the expense of publishing it! Creative memories can mean more lasting memories! Thanks for the idea Kathy Eldon!
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Summary: An extraordinary look at the contents of a young man's soul.
Review: It is a privilege to turn the pages of The Journey Is The Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon. As a reader, one bears witness to an incredible artist and remarkable young man. Eldon, whose dance on this mortal coil was hastened by a bloodthirsty mob in Somalia five years ago, chronicled his life in 17 journals since the age of 14. But it would be his last journal, found with other belongings in a sack discovered following his death that would lead to this incredible tome produced by Chronicle Books of San Francisco, California. His own death would give us the freedom to see inside his life, inside his journals where his ability to place his adventures on the page is as riveting as any assemblage artist that comes to mind. This is alchemy of William Burroughs, and Joseph Cornwell, This is the content of a young man's head, faced with the mortality of children, of a nation, and ultimately, himself. On July 12, 1993, United Nations troops bombed a house it believed was home to Somalia warlord, General Mohammed Aidid. Eldon, then 22 and working as a stringer for Reuters, and three fellow journalists were sent to the scene to record the devastation. Instead, when they arrived, Eldon and the three other journalists were confronted by an angry mob. The crowd stoned Eldon and his friends to death. The Journey Is The Destination contains page after page of astounding photographs, snippets of text, advertisements, paint and paste assembled together to lend texture to a land of starvation, banality and beauty that confronted Eldon as photojournalist, artist and young man. Lovingly edited by his mother, Kathy, The Journey contains material from all 17 of Eldon's journals. At every juncture one can tell he poured his life into the journals. It's not always high art. Sometimes one may blush for Eldon's obvious youth exuberance gone awry. But on whole we are dealing with honesty. Exquisite. Intelligent. Raw. Those are just a few words to describe the contents of this most private exhibit. In the end, the book allows us to step as close as one could safely step towards the precipice, without falling over. It gives a reader Eldon's undivided attention. It gives us all his humility and his hope for a world cured, fed and without turmoil. Lofty goals, sure, but this book reminds us it's all possible, because we can conceive it. Dan Eldon did.
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Summary: A MUST!
Review: I highly recommend this book. It is an incredible assembly of photos, clippings, drawings, and artifacts from the travels of Dan Eldon. It makes you wonder what this young man would have grown to become if it wasn't for his early death. The images are simple, complex, uplifting and morbid. A very moving book from a very talent artist.
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Summary: No words nor deep thoughts, just a scrapbook.
Review: I expected a alot more out of this book then what I got. Eldon's story seemed like a classic non-fiction read about someone who did great things in a very short time. Unfortunately, instead of getting a compilation of Eldon's writing on where he travelled, what he experienced, and why he did what he did, I got a scrapbook of scribbles, pictures, and notes. Yes, the preview did say this was a collage of sorts, but I just expected so much more. In a nutshell, if you want a rather different book to put on a coffee table, this is it. But if you are expecting to READ about a true adventurer and try to better understand a photo journalist's experiences, you are better off reading a book like "Free Spirit in a Troubled World" by John Phillips.
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