Sahara

Rating:
Summary: This Book Deserves to be More Popular
Review: I checked this book and to my dismay it has a ranking of about 80,000. on the Amazon.com sales list. Frankly I do not understand why it is so low since it is such a good book.

It has three things going for the book.

It is by Palin, so it is witty and funny and just an all round good read. It is broken down like a diary and explains his trip day by day, where he goes, who he meets, what the area and the people are like. It gives a good picture of this vast desert region. When you read this book you appreciate that there are too many good books and unfortunately that you cannot read them all. If you have time make room in your schedule to read this book.

It covers his journey across northern Africa in a very personal way, and goes to places that are not in the news and probably you will never visit. He mixes with the natives and it is all very illuminating.

Finally he has three sets of beautiful photographs in bright and excellent color that transmit a nice feel for what he sees on the trip.

All in all I think it is a good book worth three or four stars.

Jack in Toronto

Rating:
Summary: A few comments
Review: I just had a few miscelleneous comments on this book.

Not being familiar with Palin's previous travel adventures I had no expectations about this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. If it's possible to write a witty, funny, and entertaining travelogue about perhaps the most forbidding and unforgiving place on the planet, Palin does it here in this very well done book. Palin's descriptions of the Sahara are interesting, informative, and sometimes funny as well. The photos are superb and really complement the text. Being a biologist by education, I knew that the Sahara wasn't a single unremitting expanse of sand waiting to trap hapless travellers or anyone foolish enough to try to cross it unaided, but I was surprised at the diversity of habitats, plants, and animals that can be be found there, not to mention the many tribes and cultures who live in and around the Sahara itself. Palin also gives you a feel for some of these cultures and their history and I enjoyed that too. Also I enjoy architecture and the photos of the mosque at Djenna are really stunning, truly an architectural flower of the desert if there ever was one. Overall, a fine book on this vast but still misunderstood area of the world.

Rating:
Summary: A sweeping tour of the countries of the Sahara
Review: In 2001, Michael Palin travelled by camel, truck, boat, and train through Gibraltar, Morocco, the disputed territory of the Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia. Because his main purpose was to film a documentary, he typically was assigned a government "minder" in each country, although this did not stop Palin from writing about his candid impressions. For example, although he has enormous respect for the Polisario (Western Sahara) guerillas, Palin pokes fun at their military capabilities, and although he praises his Algerian government guides, he minces no words in saying that Algeria has deteriorated into anarchy.

Although it's unlikely that this book will become a classic of travel literature, it's well-written and an easy read. The book has one map and 135 color photos.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not his usual great stuff
Review: It really pains me not to give a Palin travelogue 5 stars, I just find this to be the weakest of an otherwise excellent lot. So the rating is more because Sahara suffers by comparison, buy the others first and save this one for last. Perhaps because in this travel Palin is a bit more confined in the range of personalities and cultures he meets? Still good stuff, but not great.

Rating:
Summary: Another excellent travel book from Mr Palin
Review: Michael Palin provides another illuminating travel book, this time dealing with his journeys in the Sahara. He travels more around the outskirts of the Sahara than through it but he still visits some very interesting places that most people don't know about. The book contains many humorous anecdotes and is told in Mr. Palin's warm, witty and engaging style. Great pictures also.

Rating:
Summary: down to sand
Review: Michael Palin's description of his travels through Sahara are so honest and direct, so descriptive, that reading Sahara feels like an immediate experience. Michael Palin is an excellent narrator.

Particularly effective was his description of walking with the caravan and slowly falling behind the camels, one by one, until a strong fear of abandonement takes over him.

Quote: "In only two hours, the joy of solitariness and contemplation has become the fear of isolation nad abandonment. Marine methaphors come constantly to mind. I'm out of my depth. Like a man overboard shouting after a receding ship."

His dry British Humour - actually , humour that rises well above "dry British humour", British National Treasure Humour - punctuates much of the book, always in step with the story, never forced, always understated.

"Then Omar turns and motions that there is something up ahead. I wave my bottle as high as I can, neck downwards. He doesn't move but watches the camels pass until I reach him. He hands me what's left of the water and enquires, wordlessly, how I am. 'Tres bon, merci, Omar', I lie. "

Always trying to look at the bright side of life.

Also moving are his genuine desire to find out the truth, the essence of the place he's visiting. Along his side I was dissapointed when in Algeria, he is fed hamburgers and chips by the local guide. All information packed in this book reveals a little bit of truth about the mystery that is Sahara, to the point where classifying this book as Orientalism isn't right anymore - because Orientalism is fantasy, and Michael Palin's Sahara is realism.






Rating:
Summary: Excellent overall
Review: Palin's Sahara is better written than any of the other masterpieces he has had published. The chapters are more coherent and the whole thing feels less like a diary and more like a good thorough essay.... The pictures are phenomenal...

Rating:
Summary: ...for the photos NOT the writing
Review: When John Cleese left Monty Python prior to their final series, the lot fell on Palin and the others to write the show. The result was the worst series they every produced. That Michael Palin is not the world's greatest writer is clearly evident in this book which was a bit of a chore to read through. I found his need to befriend people he would abandon immediately a tad patronising and superficial and, after reading all the other books based on his TV series so far, was getting bored with his style.

Palin is tramping around one of the most formidible places on the planet. He is constantly meeting people who live on a knife edge of existance. And yet, he is far too comfortable by contrast. I felt he was very much on the outside looking in here, moving so quickly through this vast landscape that he could never hope to really communicate what the lives and landscape is really all about. This makes Sahara a very different read from his other much more entertaining and balanced travel writing such as Pole to Pole or Around the World in 80 Days which I would definitely recommend in preference to this.

The accolades for this book should go simply to Basil Pao whose excellent photographs make this book worth the purchase. Where Palin fails to convey the stark and stunning Sahara, Pao succeeds often dramatically. His role in the success of this book in communicating the Sahara eclipses Palin's.