Customer Reviews

Give Me the World

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having read a number of respected contemporary travel writers, I now regard Leila Hadley as the absolute finest. This book, about her travels to the Far East in the 1950's, is a gem! Move over Paul Theroux, Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes and Bill Bryson. With her mesmerizing style and wild tales, Leila Hadley is in a class of her own. A must-read book of a real life adventuress!

Leila Hadley is one of the most descriptive writers of our time. Her words leap off the page and take you inside the story to enjoy her travels, right alongside her. "Give Me the World" is so much more than a travel log or journal. Ms. Hadley invites you along as her guest and urges you to see and feel what she has experienced, to be a part of her journey. You come away with an intimate knowledge of the Far East, as much as if you had seen it all yourself. I enjoyed my time in Bombay,Bangkok, and Singapore and recommend it to anyone who has a spirit of adventure. "Give Me the World" was an experience not to be missed.

This book is so packed with visual images and sensuality that I could open the book to any page, any paragraph and find poetry and description so graphic it makes my expensive camera obsolete. Her vocabulary is intense and her respect for her readers intelligence challenges me to read nothing but quality. A remarkable book. I wonder how her son, Kippy, now regards that journey. It certainly changes my notions about the fifties woman. Whew! Barbara Levinson

'Give me the world' is one of my favourite books. The way the author takes us with her around the world is just magical. It is not a description of what she sees, but really makes us feel the different parts of the world. She adds all those little anecdotes that make the reading a pleasure ...
Do you know why they break a coconut before any religious ceremony in India ??? or how do you know that a girl is single in Haiti ?? well , read this book and you ll know the answer, and lots of other things .. enjoy the reading

Leila Hadley defies the 1950's female stereotype when she takes off for Asia with her young son in tow. Leaving a prosperous career behind, Hadley is in search of more enlightening and meaningful experiences than her lush New York life affords her. She does very little in the way of planning, throws caution to the wind and hopes for the best. While the first part of her Asian adventure is quite comfortable and even luxurious at times, she dives headfirst into the adventure she covets when she hitches a ride aboard a sailboat with a small, all-male American crew. Her stories of her experiences sailing to remote destinations throughout Southeast and Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean are exhilarating and fascinating. Hadley's writing style is a bit haughty, however her stories are so interesting that this small flaw is hardly noticeable. Not the best travel memoir I have ever read, but an interesting tale by a gutsy traveler who was before her time.

FIVE STARS. This book is one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in a long time. A travel memoir so vibrant and alive, it's hard to believe it was written fifty years ago, by a writer who was then in her twenties. So much fun to read - impossible to put down.

Every so often one reads a book that absolutely captures their heart and from the moment a person picks up that particular book they are lost in the pages. The fiction writer Jasper Fforde might refer to that as "reading into a book." This is one of those books. I was searching for a travel book for my reading group and nothing stood out and then I randomly found this book one day. I read the first four pages and felt such pangs of excitement. I wanted to read more right then and there. (I couldn't of course because I had to go back to work) I bought the book as quickly as I could and jumped in. Leila Hadley knows how to engage the reader and you get the distinct pleasure of watching her mature in "Give Me the World". In the beginning it is almost as if she is running away with her child when she decides to go to Asia. They enjoy a fairly comfortable existence and she ventures carefully into the scenery. She is almost slumming it a bit initially. It is when she reaches Bangkok that she begins to change and when she meets the crew of the 'California' she blossoms. Some of my new favorite characters come from this book. Her son Kippy stands out as this quiet solid figure who seems to go easily with any new plan.

This book also gives a wonderful glimpse into another time and another world. I think it is important to take that context into mind when reading the book when she mentions various characters and the way some people spoke of each other.
The book makes me want to run off and see more of the world. One of the things the author mentions speaks to my heart that after traveling one feels listless and not refreshed like one anticipates. It is one of the most true comments I have ever run across in travel writing. It is almost mourning the adventure.

I will encourage everyone I meet to read this book.

Travel books have never, ever interested me--when I hear that one is particularly good, I tend to think, "Yeah, that was THEIR experience, but there's no way it can translate . . . " My thinking has always been that you yourself have to be somewhere, live somewhere, to really know what it's like or else what's the point?

My views on this changed when my sister gave me a copy of Leila Hadley's extraordinary "Give Me the World." A travel book in name only, this work by a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of author James Boswell is more a journey of self-discovery than it is about the places she visits--but the writing is so fierce, so fine, so rich and complex, that as a travelogue it is still head and shoulders above 90% of what else is out there cluttering the travel book bookshelves. Case in point:

Of trying to learn Siamese: "Learning to recognize such simple signs as DANGER, WOMEN and EXIT was as difficult as memorizing the patterns in filigreed silver."

Of the Siamese attitude towards life: "Although Siamese, as good Buddhists, do not believe in taking life, they see nothing wrong in rescuing a fish from drowning. If the creatures die on the bank or in a net, it is probably from exhaustion due to their long immersion, they say, and surely there can be no harm in eating them."

Of Bangkok's reputation as a den of iniquity: "To make sure that one missed nothing of Bangkok's [physical] wonderland, the Siamese had thoughtfully provided a 'Baedeker' . . . in the preface [it noted], 'This pocket book is somewhat inevitable to be kept ready at the hands.' "

Of her opium den experience: "I thought ahead to the times when, back in New York, I would say, 'By the way, I once had an interesting experience in an opium den' or even, 'Opium? Why, of course, I smoked it in Bangkok.' "

Of the difference between western and Malayan clothing: " . . . the people not in western costume looked out of place and a little garish, like partygoers in evening clothes coming home at breakfast time."

Of cooking on board a small boat: " . . . breakfast was a tempestuous affair. Vic darted about the lounge scaling coffee mugs at us, swearing at the stove, in a pother that the biscuits were burned on the bottom and raw on top, rattling and banging pans, and all the while keeping up a running flow of conversation about an article one of the men's adventure pulps had ordered him to rewrite, about the things he wanted to do--all the wildly impractical things like walking from Cairo to Morocco, chartering a dhow to explore the Baluchistan coast, leading an archaeological expedition to Alaska, and then his talk coursed off onto the subject of women and their extraordinary behavior."

On jellyfish: "We were almost abreast of the muddy current when a myriad of filmy jellyfish streamed past the hull. They were beautiful things, delicately colored--some like fragile bladders of Venetian blown glass, some like the pinky-fawn undersides of toadstools with pearly streamers."

On steering the boat at dawn: "The dawn watch. It was one of those chance rewards of travel, a magic moment, untranslatable from its time and place, a moment which lives on perpetually, with all its colors made fast. Just then there was no sign of dawn. The masts were still black against the luminous darkness of the sky, the sails grey in the starlight. There was a thrilling flush of wind against my skin."

On the Taj Mahal: "It shimmered. It glowed. It had the magical property of not looking man-made. Its marble walls had the tender radiance of seashells, petals and moonlit snow."

I could go on and on (and already have!), but really, you have to read the book to get more of this gorgeous prose and see a sheltered girl--yes, a girl, despite her twenty-five years and her six-year old son--blossom into a woman of the world as she makes her way around it. Highly recommended!

This was a great read. It was not a quick read, but fascinating! I loved that she added on extra information at the end so you know what happened after the sailing trip ended. I highly recommend this.

I'm on page 58 and I'm not sure I'll get much farther. The book is full of physical descriptions, but the author, herself, seems distant. Traveling with a six year old should seem significant, but Kippy's impact on the traveling experience has gotten little attention. I'm not convinced of her feelings about the places she visits, either. Too dull for me.

To compare: I really enjoyed KITE STRINGS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS and TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD. I finished Without Reservations, but liked it less than the first two books.