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Oaxaca Journal (National Geographic Directions)

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Once again, Oliver Sacks takes us into his world. A tenacious scribbler, he carries us on a journey back to the timeless world of nature. Quick to tell us of his passion for ferns, he recounts his journey to Oaxaca, Mexico with his collegues who share his fascination.

On one level, we are treated to a kaeidoscope of hundreds of exotic ferns and their latin names he and his frends find in the lush vegetation of Mesoamerica. Not being a fern lover myself, I marvel at the intrigue of the hunt for these living fossils, objects from the distant world of time and creation before the advent of humanity. One would expect that such trivia would bore the reader, but no, Sacks absorbs us in his fascination with the varieties of these creature; he takes us along in the narrative by his marvel with discovery.

At another level, Sacks enters the world of Oaxaca. He treats us to the rich culture of the region. He regails us with tales of the potato, the tomato, the bean, maise and pepper. He describes the ageless Oaxacan cuisine that nourishes his fellow pilgrims and the people of the region. The rubber ball of the Zatopec culture and the games played with it especially intrigues him. And his delightful descriptions of the delicious Oaxacan chocolate in all its forms stimulates mouthwatering longing for a taste. More importantly, he tells us of the people who lived in the region and bore the brunt of the Spanish Conquistadores. One is treated to the rich history of the Mesoamerican civilizations that rivaled Rome and Athens. Yet, Oaxaca's civiliztion achieved greatness while being innocent of the wheel, iron, compass, and alphabet. Sacks tells us of his confusion as a Westerner entering this world where his reference points create discontinuity.

Sacks marvels at the breadth and scope of his companions' erudition. He tells us of their vigor and clarity of mind, some of whom are into their seventh decade. Most of all, he tells us of the comfort of being among fellow scientists and friends who enjoy each others company that is devoid of the competitiveness and the rush of living in the in the rapid paced world at home.

He ends his tale by describing the idyllic surroundings of their last meal together beneath bald cypresses on the banks of a river. They were treated to estafado de pollo, a chicken stew in almond sauce and mole amarillo, with pork spiced with yerba santa and pitiona, all washed down with copious amounts of refreshing hot cinnamon-flavored Oaxacan chocolate!

What an odd little book. Just as he was finishing writing the brilliant UNCLE TUNGSTEN professor of nuerology Oliver Sachs joins an eleven day journey to Oaxaca with a band of botantists the putative purpose of which is to study ferns. Now Oliver likes ferns; he is a member of the American Fern Society and appreciates the antiquity and remarkable adaptability of ferns as much as the average guy (ok--the average, brilliant botanist). The book is replete with charming drawings of ferns and lots of Latin names and fernish descriptions. But it isn't really about ferns.

It is also a quite wonderful description of this special section of southern Mexico. As well as describing the tremendous variety of plant life found in this Mexican state he also is stunned by the variety of food. One restaurant has well over 100 dishes none the same and few immediately recognizable to his North American eye. Sachs tosses in a good deal of history--of the ancient Aztecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs and Mayans as well as Cortez and the conquering Spaniards. He also passes on a few pointed comments about the church and the modern disaster that is Mexican government. He is intrigued by Oaxaca and thinks about the necessity of returning. But this book isn't really about Oaxaca or Mexico herself.

The thirty plus botantists on this tour are an soortment of gays, lesbians, heterosexuals--all in couples save Sachs. He remarks that he has always been a loner--never really part of a couple. One night after drinking a lot of mescal they all ascend a mountaintop to observe a lunar ecliipse. Sachs enjoys the joking and camaraderie immensely, but as the eclipse approaches totality he goes off by himself to best appreciate the event. Almost through the trip he finds himself feeling oddly. After much reflection he decides that he must be feeling joy--because of the adventure, the scientific richness of all he sees, the new experience of Mexico; and, to some degree, because he feels part of a group. And that, I think, is the heart of this book. A brilliant but lonesome man finds sustenance and joy in the company of his peers. An odd, but absolutely charming, little book.

Sometime during the writing of his well regarded book "Uncle Tungsten", Neurologist Oliver Sacks took a 12 day trip to state of Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HOCK-ah) in southern Mexico ostesibly for the purpose of observing and cataloging ferns with members of the American Fern Society- to which he belongs. Oaxaca Journal is the Author's first person account of the delighful little adventure that resulted.

Because of the Author's boundless curiosity about pretty much everything, the trip becomes more than just a fern collecting odyssey. To the searching eye of Sacks, a simple midmorning sitting alone at a cafe table in a town square, becomes a rumination on human tolerance for sun and shadow. A visit to the Ancient Meso-American city of Monte Alban becomes an excuse to probe into the curious history of rubber- which the Zapotec people used to make their heavy sport balls for their own unique form of basketball. Casually encountered botanical names are savored for their historical baggage and contribution to language and culture. And each new plant Sacks and his travelling companions encounter sparks a conversation which could end up touching on just about any realm of human experience.

Sacks' travelling companions are a particular delight; intelligent, well read, boundlessly enthusiastic, they are the sort of people one dreams of having along on trips to casually recount tidbits of history, science, and cuture to enrich the experience. Anyone belonging to a club with a scientific or academic bent, will recognize the combination of passion and quirkiness in the author's new friends.

Fans of the casual, digression laden, style James Burke's "Connections" books or of the popular recent books on single subjects, such as Mark Pendergrast's "Uncommon Grounds" and Mark Kurlansky's "Salt", will probably enjoy Oaxaca Journal. These books are typically pretexts for digressions into juicy and fascinating anecdotes from the nooks and crannies of human history and knowledge.

In a way, the author's vivid account of his trip reads like a book length "National Geographic" article. There's no real agenda or underlying theme. The confluence of experiences that the trip allows to happen is point. In this sense, like the best travel writers, Sacks teaches his reader a way of traveling- that is, a way of searching and savoring our fascinating world.

Oaxaca Journal is a pithy 162 pages- with a generous amount of white space included. I would have liked to have seen more text- but I suppose that that would not fit in with the brief nature of the trip in which there was enough experience to tanatalize, but not delve deeply. The entire work could be savored during a long airport layover on the way to an exotic travel destination- which I think would provide the perfect lesson for how to proceed once arrived.

Dr. Sacks accompanied a group of botanical friends on a trip to see, catalogue, draw, and take delight in the unparalleled variety of ferns in Oaxaca, Mexico. His resulting journal is a meditation on Zapotec culture, amateur naturalists, edible insects, psychedelics, and above all ferns: seemingly so fragile yet having survived, with little change, for over 300 million years.

According to the author, his "sense of a prehistoric world, of immense spans of time, was first stimulated by ferns and fossil ferns."

For someone like myself who loves both ferns and the writings of Dr. Sacks, this journal is a treasure. It was composed under the blue sky of Oaxaca and filled with an emotion that Dr. Sacks admits is usually foreign to him: joy.

The author is fond of reading natural history journals and he has created a multi-faceted gem of his own, out of observations on lost civilizations, mescal, cochineal insects, plants as rare as horsetails a hundred feet high, and others as common as the bracken fern.

Half of our property in Michigan is covered with bracken ferns and I was always curious as to why insects didn't seem to bother them. According to this author, bracken is regarded as the 'Lucrezia Borgia' of the fern world: "the young fronds release hydrogen cyanide as soon as the insect's mandible tears into them, and if this does not kill or deter the bug, a much crueler poison lies in store. Brackens, more than any other plants, are loaded with hormones called ecdysones, and when these are ingested by insects, they cause uncontrollable molting."

The Romans used bracken on their stable floors because it arrested or perverted the development of fly larvae, although Dr. Sacks doesn't specify how the ancients kept the horses from eating their bedding. Bracken also poisons mammals, and humans who eat too many fiddle-heads over a long period of time are apt to develop stomach cancer.

It is tempting to open up "Oaxaca Journal" and reread an essay equally as vivid as the riff on the 'Lucrezia Borgia of ferns.' There are so many choices. By writing a journal for the National Geographic 'Literary Travel Series,' Dr. Sacks has opened himself up to every conceivable subject under the blazing Mexican sun.

There is indeed joy in this book.

I finished reading this in 2 days. I couldn't put it down - wanted to keep reading so that I could turn each corner with the author and other members of this excursion and see what fern, bird, or historical artifact would be observed next. I loved the extra background history about foods, artifacts, architecture, etc. The book truly took me right along with the group on their fern-hunting trip into old Mexico.

Thanks for taking me along as a stow-away. I can't wait to share this book with my reading group.

This is a book about enthusiasm. A group of amateur enthusiasts (fern lovers, bird lovers, botanists) meet for a 10 day trip exploring the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which offers unusual and rare species due to its mountains and varied climate. This is a journal kept by one scientist/geek of the travels along with the other amateur/geeks. There is probably more about ferns here than you want to know, but it is not overwhelming. What really comes through is the excitement and enthusiasm these people have for something they love. A slight book at a stretched 160 pages, Sacks' journal of the trip has interesting insights into the Mexican culture and history, encounters with gun toting guards at road blocks, observations on children, pottery, nature, geology, love, tradition, an appreciation for enthusiastic people, and an encounter with semi-legendary figure living in the mountains. Early on he explains that most of the official discoveries in botany come from amateurs, and although the book won't make you want to collect ferns, it will encourage you to keep a journal on your next trip.

This is a book for Oaxaca lovers and people who could BECOME Oaxaca lovers at the slightest provocation. Oliver Sacks, rummaging around in the history, natural history, geography, geology, anthropology and cuisine of this best-loved part of Mexico, and recording his thoughts, has answered many questions I have had about the place. Just for one example, through reading his book, I discovered that El Tule, the gigantic tree outside of town that everyone visits sooner or later, is a bald cypress and is probably at least 3000 years old. Neither fact is really clear from the information available at the site, perhaps losing something in translation. But the book is filled with such tidbits, and that's not all. Sacks and his fern-loving companions find a lot to enjoy in this old, stucco-walled, stone-paved city and the surrounding countryside. Some books make me wonder (and fear!) what the world is coming to. This book proclaims that all is not lost, since it focuses on things that have always brought hope to mankind, and perhaps represent our ultimate hope: the wonderful natural world and the many GOOD dimensions of the human mind...the many good humans. When a group of such people, intelligent, interested, interestING, and curious--as one reviewer said, exactly the kind of traveling companions one would like!--will take time from their lives and trek all the way to Oaxaca to look at ferns, the world becomes a better place, even if no one else knows about it. Thanks to Mr. Sacks, we do.

After finishing this book, I am convinced that people who develop a passion for something, be it for career, avocation, or hobby, tend to live longer and are more frequently happy, and when they die, they die happy. I bet Oliver Sacks is one of these lucky people! Never cease to be fascinated--that is one key to happiness, and Sacks proves to us just that. Without question he is a Renaissance man, keen to share with us his enthusiasm for his profession (evident from his excellent prose in "The man who mistook..." and his other books) but stays open to ideas and activities that pique his interest, one of which is attending and participating in the New York Botanical Garden's Fern Society and embarking on a weeklong trip to Oaxaca, Mexico with a quirky cast of people whose common interest in ferns and other plants, and birds, transcend professions, economic status, nationality, and personal histories. The fact that the book was based on his travel journals that were written at the time of his trip and were left unedited made the reading experience more poignant and powerful. At the end you feel grateful for people who look "beyond the scenery", who take the time "to stop and smell the flowers", and who see the world almost with the same innocence as children, for they are the ones that make life richer, and perhaps even make the world a better place for the rest of us--and for future generations.

This book has its own special charm. World- renowned psychologist and author Oliver Sacks takes a trip with members of the American Fern Society. He is an amateur here, but cannot conceal his respect for his fellow travelers, and his joy at being with them in the Mexican province of Oaxaca. Sacks describes his own childhood fascination with the work of Naturalists, and gives portraits of those avid students of specific botanical forms, those lovers of the smallest details of the natural world. For me however the Ferns and Sachs description were of secondary interest. I found his descriptions of his fellow travelers, his meditations on the history and culture of the area, his thoughts about himself and his role as perpetual single in a world of couples- more fascinating.
The book is small but it is informed by a great intelligence and sensitivity . One passage I particularly enjoyed involved Sacks sitting alone and writing in a cafe in a central square of Oaxaca. He talks about the way Hemingway loved to write in cafes in the light of the day, and the way Auden closed himself into the darkness and kept all light out. He says he himself finds the cafe and the light congenial but above all loves the experience of writing on a moving train.
In this book he moves beautifully through different levels of the natural and human world, and provides the reader with a pleasant and richly informative journal of his journey.

I am a huge fan of Oliver Sack's writing. He brought so much interest, knowledge and "wow" to case writing and now, he is bringing it to ferns and travel writing. To tell you the truth, I would never have picked up a book about ferns and would have hated it if someone was so bold as to give me one as a present, but when I went to the bookstore to browse for some summer reading, I was intrigued to find this book.

What initially got me was the graphic of the ferns on the cover. They reminded me of some food items at a fancy restaurant I had a while back. Paging through the book, I was intrigued by more wonderful graphics and finally by the fact that this was a travel journal. I rushed to the register and indulged in the first couple pages that very same afternoon.

I enjoy travel writing - mainly because it gives such an intimate look into another person's observations, thoughts and experiences. Some travel writers are careful not to say too much, but Sacks gives it all to his readers. I so much enjoyed his very detailed descriptions of his friends, the natural landscape, the food and yes, the ferns. I walked the unpaved paths with him, put on my glasses to find yet to be discovered plants and listened to his conversations with his friends.

This is a wonderful book. Sacks has a great way of keeping his readers engaged with stories of ferns and interesting facts about his travel companions. I highly recommend the book to all of the curious and open minded that won't be put off by ferns.

P.S. This book belongs to a series of travel writing published and, I think, commissioned by National Geographic.