Customer Reviews

Between Extremes

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this a funny, emotional, fantastic and honest description of a unique country. I have lived and worked in Chile now for 8 months and similar to the style of the two mens writing; (of Chile) I love it and loath it. It is not an optimistic over the top view of all things amazing and beautiful about Chile, and for this, I feel it is more real and honest. As they say, there are things that disappointed and annoyed them about Chile and the people, yet so many times things that happily exceeded any of their expectations. Which is exactly my sentiments about Chile and their people. At times the two writers do seem emotionally overdescriptive, dragging on about how they dreamed it would be and how Neruda described is beloved country, or how their minds were blown by something seemingly unimportant. But again, the amount of times I find I can't pinpoint well enough why these seemingly minor things move me so much, these two rather differently styled writers have perfectly articulated my sentiments.

Different strokes for different folks. Just as I understand why some people wouldn't/don't like Chile and others who would rave about it. I can see some people loving this book and others not.

The authors - one English, one Irish - have a certain celebrity status, having been kidnap victims in Lebanon in the late eighties. This was the reason I bought the book, I probably won't have bought the book for its content alone. The central conceit of the book is that, while in Lebanon, they had imagined the landscape of Patagonia and this had kept them going. The book is a description of their actual journey through Chile to Patagonia, its delights and disappointments, with some stray reflections on their captivity and the comradeship which it induced in them. From what I knew of them before I read the book John McCarthy is a quick-witted Englishman from whom I would have expected many jokes, but not much insight, while Brian Keenan seemed to me to be quite reflective and serious.
The journey starts in Northern Chile, a barren region, with significant mining interests and border tensions with Peru. The book consists of intertwined pieces from each man's journal - sometimes describing the same incident; its possible to get some idea of each personality from the contrasts between their entries. As expected McCarthy is more straightforwardly descriptive, and he comes across as the organiser, planner of the pair. I warmed to his personality though, as he was both realistic and generous in his descriptions of Keenan, and of his admiration of ,and debt to, his friend. Keenan, on the other hand, I liked less as I read more. Keenan adopts a conceit that he has `spiritual guides' on the journey - one being Bernardo O'Higgins an revolutionary founder of Chile in the 1800's, the other being Pablo Neruda, a famous Twentieth Century Chilean poet , three volumes of whose work Keenan quotes from through the book. I felt his speculations about these `guides' were overdone, it seemed to me that Keenan was trying to affect an intellectual air and the overall tone was contrived. In the flesh, he seemed to snore and swear and be generally disorganised and somewhat boorish, so I thought this was too much of a contrast.
In general, neither man seemed to have warmed to the journey. Keenan seemed the more inspired by Chile, but both journals emphasized the tedium and hardship of the travel arrangements - McCarthy gently emphasized Keenan's snoring. I was quite disappointed that neither man mentioned much about what happened to them in the years after their release; while I could understand their need for privacy, there is the fact that the book is trading on the public's curiosity about them, as much as it is a travel book. They actually mention meeting someone who has read Keenan's book about his captivity, who criticizes him for not putting in a afterword describing how he adjusted on this release, Keenan makes the point that he needs privacy. In particular the campaign to seek John McCarthy's release had been run by his then-girlfriend Jill Morrell, a campaign which lasted five years. Yet there is a silence about this, McCarthy refers to `Anne' periodically, who I presume is his partner now.

I am a Brit currently living in Chile - and this book was a disappointment to me. It failed miserable to convey the beauty of the country. I felt it was a book more about the friendship of these two man rather than about the country they were exploring.

I found it was a refreshing change to see the different view points of the authors - set out section by section rather then the thoughts of the two mingled together. However - Mr Keenan was annoying the heck out of me by the end of the book. He obviously didn't want to be on this trip. He made miserable reading and I felt sorry for Mr McCarthy and his more upbeat endeavours. Someone should explain to Mr Keenan that Pablo Neruda's poety is worth reading - there is no doubt - but there is so much more to Chile this one man. In addition - he is not the only chilean poet to have achieved international recognition. Gabriel Mistral ring any bells?

This country is incredible - from the driest dessert in the world to the icy ridden south. It is breathtakingly beautiful - it's people so different in each region - the scenery so distinct from north to south. I felt that none of that came across. You should only read this books if you are interested in the friendship of these two men. If you want to know about Chile - there are better books out there - books which convey something of the country and all its people.

This is a hilarious and moving tall (but true) tale about two men who had a dream and decided to go out and live it. Keenan and McCarthy came up with the idea of having a farm in Patagonia while still hostages in Beirut. Several years after their release, they decided to go to Chile and see how workable their dream was. The results were mixed but in the process, they managed to put a period to their time in captivity, learned far more about their respective heroes Bernardo O'Higgins and Pablo Neruda than they had hoped and discovered that they could still be great friends when not stuck together inside a dark, tiny room. Their travelogue is funny, frank, fractious and familiar to anyone who has traveled second-class in a country where the infrastructure is iffy. Definitely give this book a try.

A good view of cultures and the ensuing issues of people of other lands. An opportunity to learn about another's culture and one's candid view of it.

This book is the story of a journey and of a friendship born of adverse circumstances. The time they spent as hostages gives Brian Keenan and John McCarthy an authority which they wear extremely lightly. This contrasts with the more recent posturing of the 'Neocons' who could be said to have got the world into this mess in Iraq.

There is an enviable easiness and a lack of bitterness towards their captors which gives this book a moral stature which has been lacking in more recent debate of the situation in the Middle East.