Passage to Juneau [Paperback]

Jonathan Raban (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Picador (October 6, 2000)
• ISBN-10: 0330395874
• ISBN-13: 978-0330395878
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Inside story--well worth the passage by armchair!, November 22, 1999

By 

Mark Hoffman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (Hardcover)

If you love sailing, the Northwest, NW Coast Indian art, or Raban's other travel books, you've got to get this one. Leave it to a Brit--especially this shrewd, funny Brit--to see things here that others have missed, and to put them all into perspective with warm, witty prose. His observations about NW Coast Indian art, in particular, are uncanny. I've studied NW Coast Indian art for years, and I've rarely encountered better, more insightful writing about it. Raban describes in lush detail how the images and techniques of NW Coast Indian art are intimately connected with life on the water--an insight that seemingly no one has written about before, not even the great scholars Bill Holm, Bill Reid, and Hilary Stewart. For my money, this is the book of the year about the Pacific Northwest, and one of the best ever. Its only serious rivals recently are Raban's other fine Northwest-related books, "Hunting Mr. Heartbreak" and "Bad Land."

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I got lucky again..., December 31, 1999

By 

K. Parsons "Hailing from the mountaintop!" (Idyllwild, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (Hardcover)

Unlike several fine reviewers here at Amazon.com, I have not previously been exposed to the work of J Raban. As is often my style, I bought the book blind, being interested in the geographical setting of the story. I had half expected to immerse myself in a lengthy, technical and somewhat drowsy account of a sailing voyage conducted in the throes of a midlife crisis. I was very pleasantly surprised to find my preconceptions unraveled within the first three chapters. Raban writes with a depth and sincerity which belies his rather simple (and refreshing) use of narrative. The story of one man's journey on a surprisingly deep and sometimes threatening sea (right here in North America no less) becomes vital when wedded to the parallel journey Raban shares with us of his own changes and demons. The references to George Vancouver skillfully drew atmosphere over the skeleton of what, in a lesser author's pen, would have become a brittle tale of --on this day, I sailed to here-- gruel. Raban does a wonderful job of weaving a cohesive story from divergent threads including events relating to his actual sailing, his father, Northwest Native history and bloody ol' Captain Van. For 450 pages I had trouble putting this book down, and one morning woke up in Ketchikan... until my alarm clock rudely reminded me I was still in Orange County. Yes, it is a personal story, to the point of causing me to feel a little voyeuristic in places. I heartily recommend it.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Travel writing, but so much more, November 20, 1999

By 

jack olsen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (Hardcover)

This is an extraordinary book by a master of the surgical mot juste, a work of vivid imagination, of chilling insight and wisdom, of seafaring history and lore so vivid that you can almost taste the salt, containing within its pages, almost incidentally, poignant evocations of two of life's most crushing passages: the loss of a parent, and the dissolution of a marriage. Until I read "Passage to Juneau," I considered Graham Greene's "Journey Without Maps" to stand alone in the genre, with "The Lawless Roads" not far behind. Raban's work measures up in every respect.