Joining a fund-raising expedition, the author treks through primordial Irian Jaya, New Guinea. With a combination of climbing experience and Zen philosophy, he attempts the Carstensz Pyramid and the glacial Ngga Pulu, and his encounters with the Dani tribe reveal their unique way of life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
As a writer, Shulman (Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains) takes the Zen principle of mindfulness to extremes, packing his travelogue with an excess of mundane detail. Shulman began his trek to Irian Jaya (West Irian), the part of New Guinea that belongs to Indonesia, fueled by a need "to shake off some of the bonds of civilization." No detail of the journey seems irrelevant to Shulman . Some of his minutaie is charming (on the way to Irian Jaya, he wormed his way into the cockpit of a delayed flight to ask the pilot "to fly the plane a little faster"), but much isn't, as, for example when he recounts an operator-assisted phone call, apparently fascinated by the process. The chief drawback of this very personal travel memoir isn't its digressive detail, however, but its near absence of humor. For an adventurer who bumbles through encounters with everyone from airline cargo managers to penis gourd-wearing Dani tribesmen, Shulman exhibits little sense of the absurd. What gives his memoir its best moments is his penchant, when not carried too far, for focusing on his surroundings and his vivid descriptions of the land and its people. Shulman made it to the mountaintops with his Zen approach intact, but more mindfulness of the art of storytelling would make his next adventure book more exciting.
Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Zen confusions,
By A Customer
This review is from: Zen Explorations in Remotest New Guinea: Adventures in the Jungles and Mountains of Irian Jaya (Paperback)
The author is currently mixin up two different tribes of Papua (Irian Jaya), one time he even quote a story from Borneo. He describes the Dani people as Cannibals and Headhunters, they never have been both. It«s the story of a unprepared man who climbes the highest peak of Papua.He did it, but I would not have been a member of the tourist-group he went with.The whole book is a shame, and the only remote thing in it, is the mind of the author.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ineptitude at its highest level,
By William R. Long (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zen Explorations in Remotest New Guinea: Adventures in the Jungles and Mountains of Irian Jaya (Paperback)
I found myself wondering how the author had the nerve to write such an embarrassing book about his own ineptitude and poor planning. Perhaps Zen offers some explanation for him but I sure can't. Like another reviewer, I was glad I wasn't a part of the group with which he was traveling. Don't waste your money on this one.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Finishing this book was a test of my will,
By A Customer
This review is from: Zen Explorations in Remotest New Guinea: Adventures in the Jungles and Mountains of Irian Jaya (Paperback)
I whole-heartedly agree with what the above to folks had to say. The author was absolutlely hopeless and self-absorbed.
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