Hold the Enlightenment [Paperback]

Tim Cahill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2003

In his latest collection of death-defying exploits and far-flung travels, Outside Magazine editor Tim Cahill visits the side of an active volcano in Ecuador, the Saharan salt mines and the largest toxic waste dump in the Western Hemisphere. He also ventures to find a Caspian tiger in Turkey and giant centipedes in the Congo. Cahill is one of the last great intrepid journalists, and his thirty wildly entertaining essays display sparkling wit and unstinting curiosity. When not on the move, he debunks hoary notions of the kindness of dolphins and ruminates on religion, death and the perplexing phenomenon of yoga. Charming, incisive and absolutely fearless, Cahill is the perfect travel companion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Organized in the "chaotic logic of a pinball in urgent play," this collection takes its reader from a yoga retreat in Jamaica to the mountains bordering Iraq as smoothly as it transitions between moments of sheer hilarity and utter poignancy. In essence, what Cahill (Pass the Butterworms) has done is display various snapshots of his own life and travels, allowing the reader to experience it as he does one episode at a time. In "The Terrible Land," Cahill travels to Hanford, Wash., on a stretch of the Columbia River that is pristine and, at the same time, the largest toxic waste dump in the Western Hemisphere. In "Evilfish," Cahill responds to an article in the New York Times in which the much-loved, friendly dolphin is revealed to be a joy-killer. With his trademark clarity and wit, Cahill manages to take the article's depiction of the animal with a permanent smile one step farther, citing studies of dolphin gang-rape and infanticide while poking fun at a society that views dolphins as Flipper. Cahill takes armchair travelers on a search for the elusive Caspian Tiger in the villages of southeastern Turkey and on a midnight trek through an Australian forest as a "Wiley Platypus Hunter." He recounts his first "Bug Scream," the reaction to a half-pound centipede dropping on his chest in the midst of the Congo Basin, and recalls the generosity of the people of his own small town in Montana. This is a collection with something for everyone; each story, in its own way, manages to raise the consciousness of the reader and reveals that the author, whether he wishes to admit it or not, is absolutely on the path to enlightenment.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Outside magazine travel columnist Cahill (Pecked to Death by Ducks) explains that "an adventure is never an adventure when it happens. [A]n adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort recollected in tranquility." In the 30 essays that make up this collection, Cahill recounts visiting salt mines in Mali during a sand storm, quaffing snake-blood cocktails in China, and observing erupting volcanoes near Quito. The locales, which vary from far-flung places to those nearer the author's home in Livingston, MT, have infinite variety and hold the reader's interest. Cahill, whose background includes teaching travel writing, is a skilled narrator and stylist. He writes with humor and insight with occasional jabs at contemporary culture. He has a lot in common with travel enthusiast Robert Young Pelton (The Adventurist: My Life in Dangerous Places). In fact, the essay "The World's Most Dangerous Friend" describes their relationship. Highly recommended for travel collections in public libraries. Ravi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375713298
• ISBN-13: 978-0375713293
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyman's Guide, February 24, 2004

By 

Robert C. Spidle (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hold the Enlightenment (Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Travel Adventure With Moral Purpose, October 21, 2003

By 

R. Platten "rsvpdock" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Hold the Enlightenment (Paperback)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightened adventure, December 29, 2002

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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.