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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyman's Guide, February 24, 2004
Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, here, folks. Deep down, we are all Tim Cahill - slightly pudgy, kind of geeky, and always a fish out of water when we travel. Not a single one of us can go anywhere in this world and immediately blend in, feel comfortable, look natural. It's impossible and while some of like to pretend that we are jet-setters, globe-trotters, and travel afficianados, the fact of the matter is that we're usually ignorant of the cultures we visit, the places we see, and the historical importance of the lands we visit. There's nothing wrong with that and Mr. Cahill proves that our ignorance can lead to enlightenment, adventure, and humor - albeit at our own expense. Mr. Cahill has made a career of poking fun at himself in a way that's self-depreciating but allows his readers to develop and foster an unwavering respect for this man and his persepctive on the world - which I think is a common sense approach to people and places. But more importantly, you like the author. You feel you can call him Tim, meet him at a bar in Montana, throw back a few beers, and tell each other wild stories and blatant lies. He's that engaging, friendly, and comfortable in his style. Being an avid reader of this type of travel lit., I've read many different authors who all try to emulate Tim in one way or another. But unlike his peers (Bill Bryson, for example) his humor is light-hearted and not caustic or sarcastic. And more importantly, when he does have an opinion about an issue his touch is light and simple - there are no vitriolic diatribes against a developer or policy. Don't think for one second, though, that he can't turn around and whip off a piece that will leave you in a blubbering mess of tears. I read 'Enlightenment' in one sitting - sure, it was a long sitting, but one single one - at a local coffee shop. I got a plethora of stares and strange looks as I guffawed my way through it. The looks doubled when I finished the book in tears and sat there drying my eyes with a coffee-stained napkin. No exaggerations here, this book will have you in hysterics one moment and tears the next. Buy this. Read this. Treasure this.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Travel Adventure With Moral Purpose, October 21, 2003
Engaging stories that allow readers to have adventures without leaving their easy chair, but that generally contain messages about the wonders of nature and our obligation not to destroy it. There are clear heros and villians in Cahill's world, and his comic quips and foibles notwithsatnding, he makes a good case for what he is so passionate about.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enlightened adventure, December 29, 2002
This review is from: Hold the Enlightenment: More Travel, Less Bliss (Hardcover)
My favorite travel books are those that whisk me away to adventures I have no desire to experience first hand; the solitary bike trips of Dervla Murphy, for instance, or Tahir Shah's explorations of Indian magic and Amazonian flight. Tim Cahill, self-described (and humorously self-deprecating) adventurer, fits that bill perfectly with his far-flung expeditions dodging bandits across the Sahara to tour the salt mines, swimming with Great White Sharks off South Africa, touring the guerilla lands of Columbia with Robert Pelton, author of "The World's Most Dangerous Places," and, on assignment, taking a yoga retreat in Jamaica (now that sounds like something I could do). But Cahill's ("Pass the Butterworms," "Jaguars Ripped My Flesh") essays are never just about the adventure. In his introduction Cahill calls these stories "a representative sampling of my life" ("What can I say? I have a low threshold of boredom...") and adds, "if there is any organizing principle at work here it is emotional." Encounters with people who live or work in the out-of-the-way places he visits provide depth and interest. Cahill is a thoughtful as well as irreverent writer. His "Search for the Caspian Tiger" in the mountains separating Turkey and Iraq is as much a portrait of his companion, war correspondent Thomas Goltz, and his bizarre trip to Columbia, "hands down, the most dangerous destination we could have chosen in the Western Hemisphere," is really a portrait of Pelton. There are forays into his own life, from adolescent stunts to the death of his first wife and his own near crippling injury, brought about by a bout of stupidity that could happen to hardly anyone. He muses on writing and teaching and hurting people's feelings. Poignancy and laughter coexist in fluid and jarring ways. Along with his habitual irreverence, Cahill has a fine appreciation of irony and the absurd. Take the wild and pristine stretch along the Columbia river still "very much as it had been when Lewis and Clark camped nearby in 1805," a place where new species of flora and fauna are being discovered, a place where wildlife thrives - kept that way because of the off-limits presence of the hemisphere's largest repository of nuclear waste, the Hanford Site. An adroit piece on dolphins skewers the human penchant for idealizing certain (usually cute) creatures. And enlightenment arrives - by way of a half pound centipede dropping on one's sleeping chest or while guzzling a warm beer on a horrifically crowded Congo barge ("like trying to drink beer on the subway at rush hour") or while touring erupting Italian volcanoes - as it must. A fine, funny, thoughtful and varied collection.
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