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In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey
 
 
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In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey [Paperback]

James D. Houston (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)


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Book Description

April 1997
Sample Poems

Dictionary

As a small south american squirrel
inhabiting mostly mountainous regions
would feed on lizards half-way between
poles of the tropics, I too would fall
heartbreaked in the settlement of feuds
of the fields of kentucky.

When the moss grows high between the
perennials and disordered mimmocks weep,
these dainty fastidious gestating mammals
break for leavened bread and sup between
the rows of trees, lifting like friars
some heavy books in the sunlight's morning
windows where the mollusks row in scion's
quadragesimal phyla.

Found Text

The deer mistook their reflections for deer and the
deer mistook their reflections for other deer and the
deer apparently mistook their reflections for sheep
and what the deer mistook their reflections for isn't
certain and the deer were removed from the scene,
being deer, before being removed and mistaking
reflections of the other deer for the sheep the deer
were removed and the deer deciding to join them
joined the deer having mistaken reflections of sheep
for the deer having mistaken reflections of sheep
for the deer in the plate glass windows.

The New Life

I eat steak and live on the big neon avenue and fear strangers, admire my
neighbors, the drug store, and the bus,

I was an addict live addicted to the avenue, in the dark folds late at night,
addicted to sleep and lavender,

I went into the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine, loving you and the
liquor store, the lavender bottles, the many directions….

PART TWO

Today I am rivets of sails in a log cabin where Jack
London lived in Alaska until they moved his cabin here
where we collect the change to buy our drinks and eat
the free hors d'oeuvres, where the neighbors are
somewhat pleased beside the railroad trains, where the
vague sense of the Union Pacific is with opssums of
freeways and you, where the airplanes fill the plastic sky, where
the fish are brightly colored on the lawn, where an
underwater bird is pummeled on the sidestreet, where we
take hallucinogens and wander through museums, where
the people construct the atificial ponds, where


Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Houston (coauthor of Farewell to Manzanar, 1973) sets out on a journey around the Pacific Rim to explore the historical and cultural connections among the various countries and islands that surround the world's largest ocean. Along the way, he stops at Japan and the islands of Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Ie-Jima; Jakarta and Bali in Indonesia; Saipan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands of Micronesia; Honolulu and Big Island in Hawaii; and his native California. Houston was drawn on this quest to look "for ways to see my family and homeland with clearer eyes," and in this richly anecdotal text he succeeds admirably. Recommended for all libraries.?William L. Wuerch, Micronesian Area Research Ctr., Univ. of Guam
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A delightful account of an idiosyncratic odyssey through island outposts in the world's largest ocean with the observant, low-key novelist Houston (Love Life, 1985, etc.) as an unfailingly congenial tour guide. In company with his Nisei wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki, Houston headed first to her parents' homeland. Sojourning in Ibusuki (a part of Kyushu, which a local returning from the US refers to as ``the Alabama of Japan'') and later in Fukuoka (one of but four cities to host championship sumo wrestling tournaments), he finds himself wondering whether the island nation's backcountry is ``too strange and perhaps more trouble than it's worth.'' Before Houston presses on alone, however, he and his wife make contact with friends of friends who renew their faith in the cultural and other ties that bind all peoples who live on the Pacific Basin, including those who, like the Houstons, are residents of America's West Coast. In Hawaii, he seeks out a woman who talks with rocks (volcanic or otherwise), an honored vocation in a venue where the legacies of Polynesia survive and thrive. Westering on, the author lights in Indonesia (where a native son lately back from L.A. shares rules of the road for traffic-jammed Jakarta) and Bali (whose Edenic setting belies its troubled history). Covered as well on Houston's overwater trek are the Marianas (Tinian as well as Saipan, where his daughter works at a resort catering to Asians on holiday) and the Ryukyus (Iwo Jima, Okinawa, et al.), where the ghosts of WW II can still disturb the sleep of visitors. Good old-fashioned travel writing of the sort that combines personal observations on faraway places with astute commentary on what connects their past, present, and future. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Mercury House; 1st edition (April 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1562791001
  • ISBN-13: 978-1562791001
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,483,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful journey, July 22, 2008
This review is from: In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey (Paperback)
This is a wonderful book. I have re-read it several times. I lived in Santa Cruz, California for many years, and I personally know some of the people he wrote about so accurately and insightfully, although I unfortunately do not know Mr. Houston.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful--Speaks to the future of our humanity!, June 14, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey (Paperback)
This is kind of a joyful, thoughtful, updated FAREWELL TO MANZANAR, a modern journey around the Pacific Basin to see the context of our oneness as a people, the future of how we will coexist as Americans and Asians and Amerasians. Examines in a playful way the similarities we share as peoples, and the lessons we learn from each other about our cultures--our histories, and our shared humanity. Important lessons for the future as the boundaries fall away. Highly recommended
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
December 1991. When the traffic light changes, the go sign shows a human figure silhouetted against the green, a white cutout. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
two worlds touch, coco palms, ancient voices
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, San Francisco, Big Island, World War, Los Angeles, Pearl Harbor, Santa Cruz, Iwo Jima, Oka Wati, Peter Smith, Great Lewchew Discovered, Mister Donut, Baden Haus, Hawaiian Islands, Pacific Ocean, South Pacific, The Karate Kid, University of Hawaii, Edward Kern, Gunung Agung, Hong Kong, Kern County, Ohori Park, Salinas Valley, Santa Barbara
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