Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read, but . . .
Review: I enjoyed reading this book, but during Mr. Bissell's asides and reflections on life, I kept remembering that the experiences he recounted in this book occurred to him when he was in his mid 20s, an age when one cannot claim wisdom from a breadth of life experiences.In addition to writing a good narrative about central Asia, Mr. Bissell tries to distill his reflections of himself grappling with and emerging from his adolescence - the loss of his first love, the choice of career, etc. In this, I think Mr. Bissell comes close but ultimately fails. Such reflections do require time and a breadth of life experiences to enable one to dispassionately examine one's life choices. Without such maturity in introspection, Mr. Bissell allows himself at times to indulge in a rush to self-righteous judgment and defensiveness. In summary, Mr. Bissell is at his best when recounting his experiences in central Asia and the history of the region. For this alone, the book is worthwhile. His asides and reflections need to be taken with a grain of salt; one needs to remember that they are the reflections of a young man coming to grips with the decisions that brought him out of adolescence.
Rating: 
Summary: Captures Uzbekistan from an Outsider's Viewpoint
Review: Thanks for a great book Tom. My five years in Uzland came streaming back to me when you described the innocent pairing of PCVs after the swearing in ceremony, the militsyia stops in the middle of nowhere, the reuniting with your host family and the constant araq! Your point of view was honest and alluring. Your book is a great snapshot in time of a land most, regretably, won't get the opportunity to see.
Rating: 
Summary: Travesty of a Book Regarding Central Asia
Review: First of all, the book keeps the indigenous people of Central Asia at arms-length with its austere, condescending prose. It's as if the author views the inhabitants through binoculars from his air-conditioned bus, while a tape recording provides the audio for the tour. The extensive use of adjectives and convoluted, pomostodern language serves to obfuscate rather than elucidate, and the ironic, self-indulgent tone serves to Westernize the tome, so that is feels like McAsia. It reads far more like a high-school creative-writing assignment than a journal of an adventurous voyager, and one gets the impression that Bissell wrote the vast majority of it in the United States while surfing the web in some Wifi starbucks and "imagining" what it must be like in Central Asia. Basically, throughout it all the reader never quite trusts the narrator, who seems far more concerned about a career in New York publishing than life in Central Asia. Hopefully Bissell will edit the book someday, and remove the self-indulgent inside jokes. This would make it more of a pamphlet than a book, but it would be better to be honest, sincere, and brief rather than snarky, ironic, and rambling.
Rating:
Summary: Chasing the Sea
Review: Just finished reading this. It's a pretty wonderful book. Strange and funny and entertaining. I had no idea Central Asia had so much intersection with so many unexpected world history type events. It actually made me want to visit these cities Bissel writes about. Now if I can convince my wife to go... Highly recommended to travel writing fans and anyone who enjoys good writing.
Rating:
Summary: Cool book bro!
Review: "Chasing the Sea" has a character who says things like "dude" and "bro," over and over and over again. He says dude and bro for 300 pages. But other than this it's a cool book. Not much of the book "stayed" with me, though...other than the stuck ships in the salty sand at the end. That stayed with me. I think I wrote this because I think I like its Amazon page better than the book. That's entertaining bro.
Rating:
Summary: Authorial response
Review: Yo, Bobby Sherman, from Tashkent. I'm reading with a certain amount of fascination but not posting. I do, however, have friends who, like you, are willing to bend the truth in the fightin' interests of literary bloodsport. Some are not as sneaky as they could be, alas (though I'd like to believe the book has some civilian fans, too: Roxanne Roxanne, where are you?). Or wait: should I call you "Christy Thompson," the woman-dating, Central-Asia-living gal who I noticed also hates Vendela Vida's book? Hey, Bobby, you read any good books on Central Asia lately? No? That's what I thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Many writing samples
Review: Tom Bissell is a fabulous writer. Indeed many of his writing samples grace this very page. For a compelling glimpse inside his fertile mind, just read the incisive rebuttals that he has written to the negative commentary on his book under his many pseudonyms (e.g. "a reader"). Ruthlessly piercing the veils that his detractors hide behind, Bissell identifies the dark motive that drives them all - jealousy!
Rating:
Summary: A Very Fine Book
Review: This is a powerful and moving exploration of a country and people written by a young writer who fully admits to his own limitations and then, surprisingly, triumphs over them. I don't really understand the spleen vented over this book in these reviews--until I learned that Bissell wrote a magazine article about a bunch of foul-tempered literary anarchists and got on their bad side. That might explain some of the hysterics about this deeply concerned and humane book, which is filled with humor and life. (Bissell uses way too many arcane words, though--and not always correctly. He also insults Canadians.)
Rating:
Summary: a great read
Review: I was a bit daunted by the prospect of reading a book about an environmental disaster in an area of the world I knew little about, but I couldn't have asked for a better guide than Tom Bissell. He knows a ton about the region, clearly cares a great deal for its people, and combines the details of the country's history with personal stories in a way that is completely compelling. This book has a lot of heart; read it and be moved as well as informed.
Rating:
Summary: Fiction vs. Nonfiction
Review: After viewing the book at a B&N and purchasing it, I came by here to warn other would-be readers. Don't make the same mistake I did. I see the war between the pomo-words-don't-mean anything McSweeny spammers and the innocent public is underway here. As usual, don't believe the McSweeny hype (such as someone insisting that Bissell will be the fiction editor of the New Yorker some day. Who cares? What does that have to do with the fact that his nonfiction book is awful? Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia fails on so many levels). The corporate funded McSweenys crowd is at it again in full force. It's all about trying to sell as many books to the unsuspecting public as possible. First off, there's a blurb by Jonthan Franzen on the back cover which makes absolutely no sense. Franzen should be more careful with his words. And then, when one opens the book and begins reading, one gets the feeling one is traveling on a bus through Central Asia, filled with MFAs on a creative writing workshop field trip, making snarky comments regarding the native folk, coming up with a marketing plan for the corporate conglomerates. They pull over at an ancient temple, and Bissell hops out, pours some water on his stained t-shirt, and he poses for a picture for the book jacket. Bissel gets his picture taken, uploads it to his imac, and then shares the last half of his granola bar with the boy he's hired to cary his pack, filled with Frommer's travel guides and Let's Go Central Asia. He is on the cell to his literary agent, who has already come up with a couple reviews, and he beams the jacket cover photo back on home. Then he pulls out his yellow pad and a pencil. He can't come up with anything, so Bissell opens "Ecocide in the USSR" by Murray Feshbach and begins translating.
|
