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Summary: Adventure, yes. But ,oh, so well told!
Review: Other reviewers have told how exciting Severin's adventures are. Let me say how well he writes! Enjoy the adventure, but also enjoy how well he tells it to us!
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Summary: Amazing journey
Review: This book is amazing at all levels. Very well written, describes perfectly the amazing journey the Brendan voyage was. It's really a modern epic. Inspiring!
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Summary: In the spirit of Kon Tiki
Review: This is a delightful, fast read about a remarkable adventure -and a remarkable set of adventurers. I had this book sitting on my "to be read" pile for months, then I picked it up, and, well, there went the next 3 hours....Severin has written a real page turner about his attempt to re-create the hypothetical voyage to the New World by an early Irish monk in an ox-hide boat. While Severin's success does not prove the legend, the modern story alone is worth the price of admission, and his discussion of boat-building techniques & the trials and pitfalls that his team overcame make for a great book.
Rating:
Summary: In the spirit of Kon Tiki
Review: This is a delightful, fast read about a remarkable adventure -and a remarkable set of adventurers. I had this book sitting on my "to be read" pile for months, then I picked it up, and, well, there went the next 3 hours....Severin has written a real page turner about his attempt to re-create the hypothetical voyage to the New World by an early Irish monk in an ox-hide boat. While Severin's success does not prove the legend, the modern story alone is worth the price of admission, and his discussion of boat-building techniques & the trials and pitfalls that his team overcame make for a great book.
Rating:
Summary: In the spirit of Kon Tiki
Review: This is a delightful, fast read about a remarkable adventure -and a remarkable set of adventurers. I had this book sitting on my "to be read" pile for months, then I picked it up, and, well, there went the next 3 hours....Severin has written a real page turner about his attempt to re-create the hypothetical voyage to the New World by an early Irish monk in an ox-hide boat. While Severin's success does not prove the legend, the modern story alone is worth the price of admission, and his discussion of boat-building techniques & the trials and pitfalls that his team overcame make for a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing journey
Review: Tim Severin borrowed an account of the voyages of Brendan the Navigator, an Irish Monk from the dark ages. He was taken by the factual nature of some of the sailing directions and descriptions, and got the mad idea into his head that a group of monks sailed across the Atlantic to America hundreds of years before Columbus was born.Then he got an even madder idea, to replicate the voyage. The book intersperses an analysis of the original voyage with the trials and tribulations of recreating it. Along the way we learn a great deal of respect for the quality of the technology in the dark age period. Their skills with wood and leather. Their ability to preserve food, and the skills of sailing. The voyage itself becomes compulsive reading. And how anyone allowed a Faroese Islander to fish for Whales out of a leather boat is beyond me! Sounds incredible? It is. Well worth a read.
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Summary: Adventure and Archeology
Review: Tim Severin borrowed an account of the voyages of Brendan the Navigator, an Irish Monk from the dark ages. He was taken by the factual nature of some of the sailing directions and descriptions, and got the mad idea into his head that a group of monks sailed across the Atlantic to America hundreds of years before Columbus was born. Then he got an even madder idea, to replicate the voyage. The book intersperses an analysis of the original voyage with the trials and tribulations of recreating it. Along the way we learn a great deal of respect for the quality of the technology in the dark age period. Their skills with wood and leather. Their ability to preserve food, and the skills of sailing. The voyage itself becomes compulsive reading. And how anyone allowed a Faroese Islander to fish for Whales out of a leather boat is beyond me! Sounds incredible? It is. Well worth a read.
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Summary: Cold, wet and wonderful
Review: Tim Severin had meticulously worked to make sure that the leather skinned boat was made for all intents and purposes identical to the 'mythological' boat in which St. Brendan and the Irish monks crossed the North Atlantic centuries before the Vikings. He proved it could be done. This book however is not about what was accomplished but how and why. As Homer so aptly proved in his Iliad "...it's not the destination but rather the story of the journey." Adventure readers will not be disappointed by this book. A very rewarding reading experience.
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Summary: Brilliant re-creation of 'mythical' voyage
Review: Tim Severin's obsession with recreating legendary voyages, or providing working support for theories of migration, leads him to build a full-sized replica of St. Brendan's boat and follow his famous voyage. To do this he had to research the probable type of boat that Brendan used, and try to extrapolate a likely route from the very obscure 'details' in Brendan's writings. Having established that the most likely vessel was a curragh, he had to gather the raw materials and a team of experts to construct it in the traditional manner. The tale of how he gets his experts is worth the price of the book in itself! The man must have the luck of the Irish to have everything fall so neatly into place (after a discouraging start). The unravelling of fact from fiction (or our interpretation of fact as fiction...?) took many long and painful hours of studying texts and maps. Given that latitude and longitude were strangers to Brendan, only the vaguest hints of distance and direction were available to Mr. Severin. However, a plausible map of Brendan's route was cobbled together, taking prevailing winds, tides and leeway into consideration. Armed with this, and a more than serviceable boat, the bold explorers ventured forth.
I won't spoil anyone's enjoyment of the book by going into more detail. Suffice to say that almost everything that Brendan described is accounted for by natural phenomena - giving the lie to those academics who dismissed the voyage as a figment of a monk's fevered imagination. A very enjoyable read, with Mr Severin's usual hearty enthusiasm pulling you along with him. *****
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Summary: whoa...what an achievement!
Review: Tim Severin, joined by a small crew of hardy men, set out to test the plausibility of the legend of St. Brendan's voyage from Ireland to Newfoundland. They built and sailed their own leather curragh (a type of Irish boat design), and this is the story of both the construction and the voyage. The unique value of this book is in its equal appeal to a wide variety of readers. If you enjoy the intricacies of craftsmanship using leather, wood and grease; if you like great adventure travel; if you tire of hearing ancient legends cavalierly dismissed and would like to see one defended; if you love seafaring tales; if you love and/or trace lineage to Ireland; this book is for you. Severin is a self-effacingly enjoyable storyteller one can't help but like--and, apparently, one heck of a captain. Based upon this book I now plan to read my way through Severin's complete works. This is that rare book in which tremendous accomplishment and great storytelling have the wind on their quarter.
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