Customer Reviews

Contact!: A Book of Encounters

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Jan Morris has lived an interesting life, she is a gender re-assigned woman, who published under her former name, "James Morris" until the 1970s. She writes in 'Contact' that she has written little of people, so this book is her remembrances. There is no chronological or geographic order which creates a jumpy reading and thought processes.
Most of the very short writings tell of encounters, but there seems to be a condescending attitude to most that she encounters. There is nothing in each description of the essence or atmosphere that a reader can identify with.

Contact! A Book of Encounters offers moments of prose that capture moments of travel encounters in a paragraph or two. From Harry Truman to an Indian civil servant and an Egyptian beggar, any interested in either travel or the human condition will find this a fine survey of Jan Morris' many encounters on the path to exploring world cultures. Any who have enjoyed her nonfiction will relish this!

Jan Morris has always been my favorite writers with her essay approach to travel having a keen journalist's eye to detail.
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She was with Sir Edmund Hilary when he scaled Mt Everest in 1953.

The following internet address is from Don George who writes for salon.com
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Hillary's and Norgay's feat was electrifying. Heightening the impact even further was the felicitous coincidence of their arrival just before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II -- and the dramatic announcement of their triumph on the morning of the coronation. Add to this the figure of the mountaineer himself -- firm of jaw and bright of eye, humble and high-minded and handsome in a lean, mountainous way, daring but down to earth, supremely competent without being showy -- and you had the makings of an immediate legend. Hillary embodied the dash, the pluck, the stiff-upper-lip and what-the-hell, let's-go-for-it aplomb the British empire still aspired to, and almost overnight the two mountaineers became worldwide sensations. Hillary was knighted, Norgay was given the George Medal, one of Britain's highest civilian awards, and the duo was medaled, titled, toasted and feted around the world.

His source is from Jan Morris who was there and who called in the story to the London Times knocking out the coronation of Elizabeth II as the lead story.

Contact is a collection of everyday encounters and reminiscences of a life well lived.