Customer Reviews

A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While Cahill is always very entertaining, his later books have focused more on the caving, scuba, climbing and flying aspects of adventure travel. In _Wolverine_ the stories include a broader variety of journalistic endeavour, taking him from Jonestown to a bizarre religious cult to encounters with mountain gorillas. This was the book that hooked me on Tim's writing.

What makes it so good is, for one thing, that he's never so detached as to reek of smug pseudo-sophistication, but never so involved as to let his emotions and opinions interfere with the story. The balance between the two extremes is perfect. For another, Tim simply does and sees things hardly anyone else ever sees and does, let alone writes about. For yet another, he is often very funny in a dry, Montana sort of way. If you are new to Tim Cahill, you're in for quite a few hours of great reading.

"A Wolverine---" is the second book of articles mostly taken from "Rolling Stone" and "Outside" magazine. The articles were written as far back as 1971 when Tim was a young man indeed. And it shows. Youthful high spirits prevail, and there is much cheery bravado interspersed with excellent journalistic essays that display a remarkable maturity.

Ever wonder why people chase all over the earth to view a solar eclipse? Find out on a rollicking trip to find the absolute best place to get an unclouded view. Discover what all the shouting is about.

I am used to Tim somehow bringing me back alive, laughing all the way from the wildest, strangest parts of the world. I have always credited him with fine introspection and lyrical prose that sneaked into whatever he wrote. The guy is just incapable of bad writing.

The essays include a fine thought piece on the late Dian Fossey, the "Gorillas in the Mist" author who was murdered apparently by poachers. The essay on "reprogramming" of children who were enmeshed in cults is harrowing. Cahill has no use for the cults, but the rationale and methods of reprogramming are chilling. He infiltrated a California cult and lived there while developing his story. The living conditions (except for the leader who lived in a mansion on the hill) were unbelievably bad, yet the morale was high among the young converts. Tim presents a balanced, sometimes humorous, article that shows empathy for all except the leader.

The premier essay, which should be required reading, was his on-the-spot reporting of the Jamestown Massacre that took place in Guyana twenty years ago. The immediacy and power of his word pictures, the horror of 900 dead supposedly suicides, the incredible remoteness of the site crush with a pervasive sadness and dismay.

More classic Cahill, the Dave Barry of adventure travel. Cahill separates his writings into 5 sections, Jungles of the Mind, Visions of Terror and Paradise, Wet Work, Monsters and Hoaxes, and The Raggedy Edge. The stories incorporates a lot of material from his magazine work. Some of the material is recognized from his other book `Jaguars Ripped my Flesh', although he uses it with a lot of new material. I found this book much more enjoyable than `Jaguars Ripped my Flesh'.

This is an excellent collection of thoughts and comments on the sheer edge of adventure. Cahill knows exactly how to describe the amazing stupidity of some of these adventure sports in a way that still leaves you interested in participating. Like his previous collection, Jaquars Ripped My Flesh, this book covers the gamut in place and sport, from extreme skiing in Montana to whitewater rafting in India. And while Cahill is a master at adventure writing, when he turns his pen to describing the cultures of some of the more exotic places that he has visited and the difference between their culture and our's, he's both hilarious and profound. This book is a selection of the Vintage Departures series, a group of books that I have found to be uniformly excellent.

This stuff is terrific - can't stop reading it. I try to ration myself or the book will be finished before I can tear myself away. Cahill never fails to bring a new, irreverant, insightful view to his adventures. Read it for fun, but learn wierd things while you're at it.

A Wolverine is Eating My Leg is a collection of the adventures of Tim Cahill, mostly from the early 1980's. They range from true travel adventure stories such as getting stranded in the Marquesas to darker stories, such as traveling to Guyana to report on the Jonestown massacre (the most interesting of all the articles).

The stories are varied enough that there will be something for everyone in this collection, but since they are so different from one another, all readers may not enjoy all of the stories. Cahill's cockiness about his adventures felt a bit condescending at times, but this is offset by his great sense of humour and the fact that he is not afraid to poke fun at himself.

An enjoyable read that had me googling a few of the articles for more information on the subjects.

The only section that peaked my interest was the "Jungles of the Mind" which featured the author talking about how he infiltrated the Tony and Sue Alamo Christian Foundation in the 1970s where cults in California like Manson and Jones were still in popularity. I felt that the Alamo situation had gone flat with some retrospective views. I felt that he was just experimenting or trying to understand the followers but never did quite fit in. Of course, Tony Alamo is a cult leader and the members became indoctrinated into his church in an isolated area.
The Jonestown Massacre on November 18, 1978 was visited and the images were somewhat clear but vague at times as well upon the discovery of hundreds of rotting, bloated corpses. If the author had investigated, he would understand that everybody was pretty much held by gunpoint and had little choice. Only a few survived at all. He doesn't mention that the only follower outside Jonestown murdered her three children and herself in the Georgetown headquarters of the People's Temple.
Agan, I felt that the author doesn't offer much retrospective but I did appreciate his interviews with Odell Rhodes, Tim Carter, and others who survived the horrible ordeal.
I really felt that pictures could say a thousand words especially with Jonestown and the survivors.

I couldn't put this book down, I was intrigued at the detail and insight of the author.

Tim Cahill's adventure travelogue, "A Wolverine is Eating my Leg", is a book of give and take as applies to the numerous subject matters he experienced and collects into this work.
For me, overall, I enjoyed they book but I will probably not read the book in its entirety again. I will read sections of it just not all of it. Keep in mind, these are works that were written for various magazines over a period of 15 years. There is no smooth flow from one adventure to the next but rather sudden large leaps. It is almost better to rate this book by its sections rather than the book on the whole. Some parts were just more interesting than the others. Here's my run down:
1. Treasure seeking in South America... lackluster - 2 stars
2. Gorilla Country... interest is rising - 3 stars
3. Tony & Susan Alamo Cult infiltration - even better, showing some interesting events that Cahill actually looked into, showing this "cult religion" to be much more voluntary and more of being duped than brainwashing - 4 stars
4. Jonestown, Guyana - this is the peak of the book, very interesting and after seeing the pictures of the mass 'suicide' it has an even bigger impact. This is the best piece in this book - 5 stars
5. The 'Terror of the Heart' section - Cahill covers things from public nudity, eclipse addicition, getting stuck on Marquesas islands, scuba diving around sharks, snakes, and sea lions. Nothing great here, meandering thoughts, kind of uninspiring - 1 star
6. 'Monsters' - Cahill talks about bigfoot and ice fishing for giant pike. I liked the bigfoot section but the ice pike fishing did nothing and is slow moving - 3 stars
7. 'Raggedy Edge' - Cahill covers surviving a walk in Death Valley, cave exploring, cliff skiing, and white water rafting in India. This was mildly interesting but was nothing spectacular - 3 stars.

Cahill relates the stories in varying degrees of interest and enthusiasm, possibly changing of his writing styles over the 15 years and the various magazines formats may influence this also. Overall, mediocre, there's better travelogues. Maybe if Cahill did all this in 1-2 years continuously it would have had a better reception from me. The Jonestown coverage is well worth the read though.

A collection of magazine pieces by travel writer/thrill seeker Cahill that has its moments.