Customer Reviews

Water in Between: A Journey at Sea

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In this autobiographical book, Kevin Patterson, medical doctor, unsuccessful army officer, and failed lover, takes us and a series of increasingly reluctant crew members along on his sailing trip from Vancouver to Tahiti and back. By the last leg of the journey, Kevin, unsurprisingly, is sailing alone. This book is not a sailing manual, in fact it becomes apparent that even by the end of his journey Kevin is still unable to sail. It is not adventure writing. It is instead a meditation on travel and travel writers and Kevin himself. And if Patterson's thoughts are sometimes a little banal, his love affairs a little adolescent, his prose not always up to par with the authors he generously quotes, and even if the ending is a little abrupt, then this does not stop the book from being an interesting read. Patterson is witty and clever. However, it it's a funny travel book you want, look to Bill Bryson, for meditations on travel look to Chatwin, for damn good travel writing read Theroux, and if it's sailing you're after then you can't go wrong with Slocum and Montessier. If you've read them all and a few more then try this.

Though I would think twice about joining Kevin Patterson on his journey at sea, I would not hesitate to read this book. Kevin Patterson has a way of taking you along anyway. Through wild weather and days and days in the doldrums, subsisting on noodles and frozen pie, you gain a pretty real sense of life at sea. There are mishaps and no apparent way of bathing, but at the same time you get to visit some rare places: Penrhyn Atoll, Palmyra, Tahiti. You also get to read over Kevin's shoulder and drink brandy long into the night in the dimly lit cabin and discuss writers you otherwise may not have read: Chatwin, Theroux and many other accounts of sea adventure. Then you wake in the morning, a little fuzzy and bleary-eyed only to discover the main sail has torn and wrapped itself around the mast. But wait. You are not at sea at all. You are on the sofa by the fire, reading a great book. He's the one who has to deal with the sail and eat cold curry noodles for breakfast. What a relief. What an incredible book.

Even those of us who have had little or no sailing experience, will not be able to resist the charm of Kevin Patterson's writing. It is a tale for even those who get weak at the knees at just contemplating the idea of being surrounded by nothing but water, wind, rain and sky, or by being truly alone with the slapping reality of oneself, will not be able to stop turning the pages. He writes as if he is reading to you, and he teaches you that you can make anything happen, if you so desire it, or if you are just plain bored with the routine of life. "The Water in Between" is not simply the tale of a 29 year old man fulfilling some egotistical plight to capture his youth, or his attempt to 'bodly go where few men have gone before', rather it is an honest, and at times a hilariously sarcastic narrative, about a person who decided to shed the skin of self-pity, and go for it. For me, the most enjoyable part of this book was that while the story itself is real, so to is the author!

If you are looking for a travel guide to the South Pacific, this is not the book for you. If you have never sailed, it does give an inkling of the moodiness of the sea and its power. I found that frightening. It is a detailed account of a voyage of self-exploration that just as well could have taken place wherever two points of comfort are separated by a wide expanse of emptiness. It has its white-knuckle moments as well as marvelous descriptions of stress-free paradise. For anyone who has spent time alone and has been forced to probe one's soul, this will be a very good read.

As a "belly scratcher", I was suprised as to how quickly a was sailing alongside Patterson as he recounted his travels. It takes superb writing to transport me from my favorite chair in my living room and plunk me in the middle of the Pacific, enduring both gales and doldrums. I found "The Water in Between" an engaging and thought provoking read. I cannot imagine, even given my failed relationships, purchasing a ship and following my wanderlust. Yet this is not a tale of bravado and fearlessness, but a very human account of one man's quest. Patterson recounts his voyage with a comfortable style and language. I could identify with the yearning to depart from the inanities of a job and begin a search for ... more. I am not sure if it is the resources or the impetus that I lack. My curiousity about other travel writers is most certainly piqued. Excerpts of Theroux, Chatwin, Slocum and Moitessier (all on my to-read list) are brilliantly used to supplement Patterson's own travelogue. While his journey may have began based in self-pity and sorrow, it finishes with the realization that independence is a truly joyous attribute. Pvovided that you have a place to call home. A fantastic writing debut! Awaiting more.

Twenty-nine year old Patterson, fleeing a failed love affair and the Manitoba winter, buys a 37-foot sail boat in Vancouver and sails to Tahiti and back. Patterson has no sailing experience, but he attracts a companion, Don Lang, who does. They brave storms and boredom. They even survive a brief stay in Hawaii.

Not surprisingly, the voyage gives Patterson a chance to think. The results, included here, make this more than just a travel book. He discusses the reasons why men roam and travel writing as a genre. Among the author's inspirations are Bruce Chatwin, Wilfred Thesiger, and Eric Newby. For a modern-day Canadian (or American) to have heard of these classic travel writers, let alone discuss them with any measure of authority, is an achievement. I'm impressed. For that alone I have to give this a high rating.

The author concludes that while men may travel to escape, it is no solution to their problems. It is better to stay at home and deal with them. Travel as escapism solves nothing: you just bring your troubles with you.

Patterson's critique of Chatwin is spot-on. For all their enthusiasm for nomadism, Chatwin and the others fell far short of the ideal. They were never true nomads. Chatwin always had his American wife ensconced in an English cottage to come home to. And Thesiger, despite living for years in Arabia and Iraq, relied on a considerable annual private income and his mother's flat in London. They travelled only because they could afford to: home was always there for them.

And that, I think, is one of the points of this book. It is settlement -- home -- that first encouraged the growth of civilisation, which in turn has allowed men to think, to travel, and to write at leisure. And of course without that we would not have such fine books as this one. I highly recommend it.

Kevin Patterson's journey is a richly written autobiographical work of a wonderful journey taken from British Columbia to Tahiti ad back. In addition to being a challenging journey for a man who has never sailed before, it is also a fine literary analysis for reasons of taking a journey of this kind. The book is a thrill to read on a literary level for the amazing understanding of the writing of Bruce Chatwin as well as other writers, sailors and friends who have taken serious voyages and were "going" places and loved both the voyage as well as the locations and the natives. It is a real deeply thought out and analyzed work that add a new and comprehensive insight on meaning and home and happiness. The references in the text that are elaborately exposed gives me a list of books to read and re-read for a lifetime.

I guess it happens to us all sooner or later. We slowly glance around at the outer shell of our lives, hesitate, then look a little deeper. When the resulting emotions are predomiantly less than favorable, escapism becomes increasingly attractive. Here, we read the tale of a man, a doctor, a somewhat less than novice sailor, who is so unhappy with the state of his existence that he packs up, jumps aboard his newly purchased vessel and head to Tahiti. Thank goodness he takes along an acquaitence who knows more than him about how to set a sail. You can read this book in several ways. One is as an adventure at sea, akin to Joshua Slocumb's unrivaled classic of solo circumnavigation. Or, you can see this tale through the eyes of Everyman, who sees the endless wonder of the sea as the ultimate "road less traveled." Yet, no matter what shape of lens you read it, it is in the end, the tale of a man who has come so close to desperation that he is willing to lose it all, to find something he cannot even identify. And we are taken on a thrilling ride, filled in equal parts with historical anecdotes, geographical explanations, and of course, a deep source of sailing knowledge. To describe the work would be to see the pictures of a vacation before the plane even leaves the ground. Suffice it to say that, within these pages, the reader will be taken away from his own life, if only for awhile, to set sail upon the dangerous and liberating ocean, with a destination in mind, but a journey at heart. And when wanderlust is concerned, it is the path that we travel upon, and not where that path leads, that makes all the difference in the world.

Some reviewers have complained that this is a book of ideas, and certainly it is. It is not a book of macho adventure, though his lack a natural sailing ability does make for some harrowing moments. His trip between Vancouver Island and Tahiti serves more as reference point for deeper, more personal reflections than a pure narrative, and he manages this without any penchant for flakey expostulations about his personal growth or metaphysical speculations about the nature of travel. Indeed, along the way he finds himself dissatisfied with the presentation of travel that he finds in other writers, like Chatwin or Theroux, and in taking them to task he exposes much of the myth of travel as a way of finding one's self. This is heady stuff, but he manages it without preaching or self-congratulation. It was for me a very satisfying read (and one perhaps more valuable because I had read Chatwin and Theroux already). I was disappointed to find Patterson's book so poorly reviewed here, because I felt many of things for which he is taken to task are precisely the things that made his efforts so valuable and worthy. I think if you are interested in the art of travel rather than perhaps its faultless execution, you would do well to have a look at this book.

Kevin Patterson took a flying leap into the blue. He was either brave or foolish, but that is beside the point. Sometimes we need to kick loose from a rut. Sometimes we might want to join a witness relocation program for when we get our lives all messed up. There isn't. But we CAN buy a sailboat and head out to sea to find ourselves again. Kevin discovers his own truths as he encounters both exotic and mundane people and places. I appreciated his honesty--that he did not feel the need to glamorize his actions--things just happened. They just WERE. I loved this philosophical journey, the humor and the discovery of one who left and then came back, a better man for having taken the trip. Highly recommended.