Rating: 
Summary: Paced just like sailing--squalls followed by calm
Review: Kevin Patterson took a flying leap into the blue. He was either brave or foolish, but that is beside the point. Sometimes we need to kick loose from a rut. Sometimes we might want to join a witness relocation program for when we get our lives all messed up. There isn't. But we CAN buy a sailboat and head out to sea to find ourselves again. Kevin discovers his own truths as he encounters both exotic and mundane people and places. I appreciated his honesty--that he did not feel the need to glamorize his actions--things just happened. They just WERE. I loved this philosophical journey, the humor and the discovery of one who left and then came back, a better man for having taken the trip. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant literary work of passage and meaning...
Review: Kevin Patterson's journey is a richly written autobiographical work of a wonderful journey taken from British Columbia to Tahiti ad back. In addition to being a challenging journey for a man who has never sailed before, it is also a fine literary analysis for reasons of taking a journey of this kind. The book is a thrill to read on a literary level for the amazing understanding of the writing of Bruce Chatwin as well as other writers, sailors and friends who have taken serious voyages and were "going" places and loved both the voyage as well as the locations and the natives. It is a real deeply thought out and analyzed work that add a new and comprehensive insight on meaning and home and happiness. The references in the text that are elaborately exposed gives me a list of books to read and re-read for a lifetime.
Rating: 
Summary: Reminds Me of a Spam Sandwich
Review: Like Raban's A PASSAGE TO JUNEAU, this book reminds me of a spam sandwich made on delicious home-made bread. The obvious question...."Why louse up the bread with the spam?" Both authors have some interesting observations on life on the sea. But both seem compelled to keep jumping out of their boats and into the remembrances of failed personal relationships. While I would recommend both books, I would also encourage both authors to find editors with enough courage to make some serious cuts. Who really cares to listen to them recount their all too common and banal problems?
Rating:
Summary: An emotional as well as an physical journey
Review: Most books about ocean voyages are as dull as a day in the doldrums. This one is not. The author tells more truths and fewer lies than any other author of this genre but the real interest in the book is not simply the physical journey to Tahiti and back but the emotional journey from the person who left to the considerably wiser person who returned.
Rating: 
Summary: A journey through travel writing
Review: Mr. Patterson tells us pretty quickly that he prefers books and ideas to the world at large. The lesson he learns on his journey and that he passes on quite persuasively and with much evidence is that armchair travelers, which he truly is at heart, should resist the impulse to put down their book, get off the sofa, and go have an adventure of one's own. He is very lucky to have survived his impulse.Patterson is very much "at home" while discussing travel writing and writers. Very much "at sea" while at large in the wide world. He takes much pain in puncturing "the myths" of travel writing and he may well be right. But it is a world of ideas that he travels in. Even while crossing the Pacific or working in the Arctic, he hides his nose and eyes in his books. His biographical material tells us it has always been so. I admire his honesty in revealing his character that continuously makes selfish choices that isolate him from reality. From stiffing his "lover" by staying all day in a bookstore to inviting friends to cross an ocean with him as captain (this borders on criminality), his story is full of episodes that make the reader want to grab him by the shoulders and shake the fog out of his eyes. Essentially a selfish and intellectually smug young man, he does not learn the lessons that will make him stronger or more compassionate or more able to cope with the physical world (sailing, for example), he learns and teaches us that home is best, that travel is not a cure for loneliness, and that travel is not all that it is cracked up to be by travel writing. Well, it is a book afterall. And he is a good writer. But he has conciously limited his life experiences by choosing books over the world around him. If his trip was less rich in experience than he hoped (and that I had hoped), it is because he does not make himself available to experience. So in the end this book has much to say about travel writing and very little to say about travel.
Rating:
Summary: Women are from Venus, Men go Sailing?
Review: My reading group picked this book for our summer theme "Voyages we wish we had taken" We split down gender lines: the men liked it, the women hated it. Since this rarely happens we spent a lot of time trying to understand our different reactions. The women thought the book was turgid, smug & shallow. Even though the author's travels were based on sadness over a woman, he doesn't spend much time talking about her or why their relationship ended or any other relationships in the book. This is only important because the author spends so much time brooding about them. In fact, the author doesn't spend much time thinking about anyone else except for the authors of the books he reads. The characterization is very poor all through the book. The men liked the book because it sounded "cool" going off to sea, escaping society & its obligations etc but were also disappointed that there was so little description of the places he travelled. There are some beautiful sentences and paragraphs in this book. Unfortunately they are lost in the masses of writing about the author's angst. This book is not a travel book that talks about exotic places, interesting history or colorful descriptions. Unlike theroux who uses his travels to understand his own culture better, the author does not dwell on anything outside his own existence. This travel book is an exploration of the author's own underachieving existence and it's not a pretty journey. For our next books we are going to pick REAL travel books by Slocum, Chatwin, Nichols and anyone else other readers suggest.
Rating:
Summary: Melancholy as deep as the Pacific
Review: Not a travelogue as much as a fleshing out of the regrets of a man on the ocean. He admits to the self-pity early, and it is as consistent as the tides. Only about half the time is spent discussing the travels, but when they are, they are excellent (Perryhn and Palmyra). The verbal journey in-between can be long, but the hope for more of it kept me interested enough to finish.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing, often Funny, but Occasionally Bogged Down
Review: One gets the impression that Patterson wrote this book more for
himself than for anyone else. But for the average reader who may
not be familiar with sailing, this book opens up a marvelous new
nautical world. Patterson has an amazing knack for describing
events in a very humorous and memorable way, making even
seasickness from pecan pie hilarious. Where the book bogs down,
however, is in Patterson's introspection and in his
examination of the introspection of sailors who have preceeded
him. He really wants to know why he did what he did, and
discovering that is as much a part of his quest as the journey
itself. Unfortunately, I for one got very little out of this
introspection. All in all, though, a very entertaining and
enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Being a Young Drunk in Not Enough
Review: Patterson writes as if he had some deep personal trauma to flee Sea-wards toward.. He didn't . When he wrote this book, he was a late-20 something, and a walking definition of solipsm. There is lot of self-indulgent "angst" in this book, of the type which most folks leave behind sometime between 17 and 23 , when they incur some obligations to others. He doesn't have a life, which he freely admits. What is rather scary is that he was a physician in training, while he wrote this book. He spends a good part of his days and nights drunk...rather cheerlessly so. Hopefully he has gotten his substance abuse under control by now. I certainly would NOT include this book on MY resume, seeking employment, as a physician. His self-irony is cute, his writing style adequate, and he does a pretty good gloss on other travel writers (mostly from the early 20th Century). Unfortunately his narrative often sinks into the " I was drunk,we were all drunk" school of writing. Patterson can be lyrical, but too often he is self absorbed. I wouldn't call this book the acme of maritime writing. Raban writes much better, even in his earliest works. Part of this book is about the sea, but most of it is about Patterson's strong sense of ennui, drinking problems,and virginity.( In Love and Life). The literate and sensitive 15 year old male will find this book appealing. The book is at your local library... it is a nice first effort. I believe it is more worthy of being "recycled" at the library, rather than being purchased, as this might encourage his publishing house to bring us "more of the same"...
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful personal account of exploration
Review: Some reviewers have complained that this is a book of ideas, and certainly it is. It is not a book of macho adventure, though his lack a natural sailing ability does make for some harrowing moments. His trip between Vancouver Island and Tahiti serves more as reference point for deeper, more personal reflections than a pure narrative, and he manages this without any penchant for flakey expostulations about his personal growth or metaphysical speculations about the nature of travel. Indeed, along the way he finds himself dissatisfied with the presentation of travel that he finds in other writers, like Chatwin or Theroux, and in taking them to task he exposes much of the myth of travel as a way of finding one's self. This is heady stuff, but he manages it without preaching or self-congratulation. It was for me a very satisfying read (and one perhaps more valuable because I had read Chatwin and Theroux already). I was disappointed to find Patterson's book so poorly reviewed here, because I felt many of things for which he is taken to task are precisely the things that made his efforts so valuable and worthy. I think if you are interested in the art of travel rather than perhaps its faultless execution, you would do well to have a look at this book.
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