Customer Reviews

Travels

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I admit I did not buy this book. I found it in the lost-and-found bin at work; thumbed through some passages during lunch breaks; waited 30 days until no one claimed it, and took it.

Only when I read it through did I realize this is one of the most important books I own.

I am not well-traveled, but enjoy Crichton's fictional work, from "Andromeda Strain" to "Jurassic Park." He is obviously intelligent, imaginative, and writes well. His adventures abroad are fascinating. But what changed my life and the lives of several people I know are the recountings of inner experiences: the things no rational person acknowledges day-to-day.

In this book, Michael Crichton- a medical student- admits to finding Ram Dass's New Age viewpoint puzzling and strange at first. In subsequent chapters, he quits his promising medical career to pursue writing. From there his exploits become stuff of fantasy; shooting a film with Sean Connery, traveling to countries he had previously never heard of, becoming rationally convinced that auras are real and can be seen.

This is a book I read that transformed me from a skeptic to an open-minded pragmatist. That may seem like schlock at first, but think about it. Do you have the opportunity and means to travel to Thailand, or Hunza? Have you consulted intuitive psychics from around the world, or sliced open a cadaver?

Buy this book. It may inspire you to explore inner realities like me, or reassure your agnostic point of view. In any case, you will read wondrous descriptions of Crichton's personal journeys. You will be compelled.

In the Preface of this highly informative and entertaining collection of musings, experiences and travels of the body, mind and spirit, Crichton explains the reasons that prompted him to write this book:

"If you are a writer, the assimilation of important experiences almost obliges you to write about them. Writing is how you make the experience your own, how you explore what it means to you, how you come to possess it, and ultimately release it."

Crichton explores our need for direct experience. His premise is that modern man has lost his innate sense of himself and existence, relying on opinions, concepts and information structures, second hand knowledge, in order to make sense of the world, which, in the end, is a false perception. He proposes that the modern city-dweller, for example, cannot even see the stars at night due to the false light around him, causing a serious alienation from himself and reality. We've become so reliant on the media, hyper -realty, that simulation has become the real, thus we have generally lost our bearings, we have lost track of ourselves in relation to the greater scheme of things. Travel for Crichton, then, helped him to have "direct experience", thus achieving a greater sense of himself and his place on the planet. This book is about these direct experiences.

In Travels there are twenty- eight essays covering the author's early life in medical school and his bout with psychiatry, moving on to his first years in Hollywood as an aspiring writer and filmmaker, to his experiences in exotic lands and his musings on his experiences with the esoteric and the unexplained. These last essays are extremely interesting because Crichton attempts to rationally explain those phenomenon that dwell in the irrational - entities, other dimensional realms and the underrated "sixth" sense, that we've come to know as intuition. His proposition is that, fundamentally, just because certain phenomena cannot be explained "rationally", doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And to dismiss such phenomenon because it cannot hold up under the rigors of scientific analysis, is a mistake.

Crichton's Travels is a writer's exploration of himself and the world. It is an entertaining chronicle, at times hilarious and sad, and ultimately a strong argument for the need for all of us to have "direct experience", reinforcing his view that we also need greater insight into the mystical as well as the scientific, in order to truly understand ourselves and existence.

As usual, similar to all his books, Crichton has given us something informative, as well as tremendously entertaining.

Not many people can take an outrageous idea and run with it, so convincingly that there are people walking around in the world right now that actually believe dinosaurs have been brought back from extinction to act in big-budget movies! But Crichton is THAT good. In this non-fiction "Travels" you actually get the chance to ride around on Michael Crichton's 6-foot-above-the-ground shoulders (and STILL not see over his gigantic head!), peer out the windows of his eyes, and along the journey(s) discover the author to be a very authentic, introspective, one-part cowardly and six parts courageous, confused, flawed, highly intelligent, sometimes silly, sometimes blundering and yet always a tragically deep HUMAN every bit as fascinating as his best characters, kind of a Quantum Theory mentality in tour de force action. His early days as a doctor supporting himself as a fiction writer (fainting at the sight of his own blood) are just as engrossing as his soul-seeking travels about the globe, whether he's being swept unstoppably through a cloud of sharks, dealing with the frustrating anger of his father's untimely death, nearly fainting at a 300-pound gorilla's charge, or riding on the top of a train with Sean Connery, it's very difficult to put this book down. I strongly like most of Crichton's novels, but I strongly loved this non-fiction memoir.

I read through all the one-star reviews, and they all say the same thing: they didn't like the book because Crichton is a whiny, self-absorbed cry baby.

They seem to believe that Crichton somehow unknowingly portrayed himself this way. But the point is that he is fully aware of it. He talks about his weaknesses, his inexorable insecurities, and the experiences that helped him to change those things. The one-star reviewers wanted a cowboy or Indiana Jones type, but Crichton uses the book to expose himself to his readers by sharing thoughts and attitudes he formerly held, some of which those one-star reviewers have doubtlessly had themselves. Many are not thoughts and attitudes anyone is proud to have had in retrospect, and it shows a great measure of courage to stake his reputation with the publication of this book.

And whats this whining about "he thinks of African tribal women as animals"? It was very clear he describing the personal impact of a cultural gulf of greater magnitude than he'd ever experienced. He finished that chapter by describing the behavior of African tribes people as indicating they must have felt the same way about him, and that the notion on both sides was, in the end, absurd.

The pompousness of traveling somewhere just because other people could not? Crichton was making himself vulnerable to see what the hell he was made of. Its a shame the one-star reviewers can't get that much out of the book... I'm not sure they would get anything out of traveling themselves. They all seem to think they've reached self-realization in a vacuum.

Thirty-seven stories of one writers accounts. Be it somewhere without or somewhere within, this book is the best auto-biographical adventure I have ever read. Crichton narrates his stories with comical candor and psychological accuity. He blends the exotic and phenomenal into a perfect creation until it transcends the wonderous and becomes human. Not a single story is without it's own life lesson for the author. His ability to relate each episode to the reader and make the reader understand the lesson's he learned is unmistakable. His interactions with women, (there are a quite a few) animals and spirits are humorously expelled as he entwines the audience with his wit and candor. Crichton's massive accomplishments are towered only by his impressive feats of earth and soul. All in all this book will be one your favorites, for every reason I can think of.

Usually I adopt a rather snobbish tone when discussing books by Michael Crichton. "He is a great author," I say with disdain, "When he isn't writing Hollywood scripts and passing them off as novels." I tell you this so you can somehow transcend your own Crichtophobia. Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is something different. This isn't Crichton's genre fiction. This non-fiction account of his travels, both geographic and metaphysical, will change the way you view the world. Absolutely a gem of a novel, full of a truly candid tone and eye-opening revelations. It makes you wonder what he's doing writing The Lost World. My well-thumbed copy has certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty, having been loaned out to great acclaim from everyone from my stage manager to my socialite sister to my staunchly skeptical neighbor. Incidentally, an earlier Crichton novel called Case of Need (originally published under a pseudonym, which is how I read it...didn't know it was actually Crichton until I read Travels)is worth the time, too.

Travels consists of a series of short stories, autobiographical in nature, relating various of Michael Crichton's experiences. Many of the stories have an element of spirituality, as the Author seems to constantly be looking for greater meaning, or greater understanding of himself and life in general. From tarot, auras, and past lives, to spoon bending, and chakras, Crichton has experienced it. It was interesting to see how a Harvard educated MD approached these different fringe phenomena, and was able to relate them as well as his own sense of curiosity in each of the different stories.

The book has sparked some curiosity in me, and has made me consider that there may very well be phenomena that we don't fully understand. While I still am not a believer in psychic powers, or fortune tellers, I will go so far as to say that there are many mysteries in life that I have not yet experienced.

Overall I found the stories interesting, but short. Considering they are short stories, this is not a bad thing, but there were definitely times when I was craving more information, more detail, more writing. This isn't really a complaint so much as me whining. It was a very interesting collection of stories, and I think some of you will enjoy reading about them. I generally enjoy anything that gives me more information about the author so that I can get a feel for where their writing is coming from.

This was a truly fascinating text -- Crichton has led a life
as rich and diverse as anyone could hope for -- travelling
to Nepal, attending psychic parties in California -- he's
done it all. Seeing what he's done and where he's gone really
gave me a new "confidence" in reading his ficiton novels -- this
man is basically an authority on anything and everything.

The most interesting part of this book
wasn't his travelogues (although they were quite interesting in their own right),
but rather his discussions of person-to-person relationships.
The discussions of his relationships with women were particularly
enlightening -- he's really had some unpleasant experiences with
members of the opposite sex, and after reading them, you'll
understand the real-life roots of some of the female characters
in his fiction works (read Disclosure again after reading Travels...)
After reading his personal philosophy on what men and women
are both REALLY after in a relationship, I had to put
the book down and think for a while -- he, more so than
any self-help book I've ever seen, hits the nail right on
the head in just a ten-page vignette.

Another striking thing about this book is that (unlike some
of his later works -- Lost World, for example...) Crichtion seems to be writing for himself,
without any thought toward any movies that might be made from
this book, and he reveals some VERY personal things in this
book, much more personal that what might be revealed in
some 20/20 interview (it is one of his earlier works,
and he may not have beem so audience-conscious when he wrote it).
Overall, this is a fascinating book -- it's really compelling
to see Crichton turn his analytic mind away from current events
and focus it on himself instead.

This book is engrossing because Crichton seems to make a 180 degree turn in the way he sees the world throughout the course of the narrative. His personal evolution involves many interesting, sometimes bizarre adventures that made me look at the practice of medicine and new age philosophies in a very different light.

This was only the second Michael Crichton book I've read, after
Disclosure (which I read without knowing anything about Crichton, and
because somebody left it on an airplane). Since reading Disclosure I
had taken much more note of him, seemingly seeing his name on every
third movie or TV show I watched - and gradually associating that name
with a high level of interest and quality. Even Crichton's "pop
culture" creations had more depth to them than I first thought. I
picked up Travels at a used book store (I wasn't looking for it, but
it sounded interesting from the blurb) and found the book fascinating,
consistently entertaining, and enriching. It raises my spirits to
discover that someone so influential in creating the entertainment
content by which I, my children, and the culture I live in are
nourished is really extraordinarily talented, curious, intrepid,
soul-searching, and -- likeable. Crichton's outlook and his life are
an inspiration. He has lived richly and courageously, with a
world-class hunger for the outer and inner frontiers of experience.
Make no mistake, Travels catalogs Crichton's travels in the inner
world as much as in the outer world. (Be prepared for first-hand
accounts of spoon-bending and aura fluffing!) As long as you're going
to be exposed to a lot of Michael Crichton regardless, you might as
well get to know the guy