Word: paste
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...dangerous sharks and storms, Raban spends more time drinking champagne and maintaining his classic book collection aboard his cozy, quite luxurious vessel. Nothing particularly shocking or dramatic happens to him at sea, but nevertheless Raban has produced a pensive piece about his immediate family and the people from the past with whom he finds a connection via the cold waters of the Northwest...
...subtleties of the self outshine everything else. Raban deliciously excerpts snippets of conversations and reflections that peer into the souls of his acquaintances and closest friends. The sea itself serves only as a recurring motif that provides logical connections between the European explorers and natives of the past, the fishermen and disillusioned urban dwellers of the present and the young daughter and dying father of the author's real life. In a book that you assume will focus on long, flowing descriptions of the beautiful landscape, the detail given to the lives of the people found in this environment...
...historical stories and personal musings effectively fascinate us, but do not evoke any deeper kind of thought. As a travel journal, Passage to Juneau attempts to reflect on the adventures of past explorers of the same passage. Unfortunately, many of the historical accounts that accompany the author's itinerary are essentially some variation of, "Wow! That is an interesting fact. Imagine that!" For example, he introduces us to George Vancouver and his crew on the Discovery, as they attempt to map out the lands of the Inside Passage in 1792. What Raban tells us is interesting food for conversation...
...Passage to Juneau is intelligently written, with plenty of dry wit and humor as well as some reflective thoughts about nature and its inhabitants. The novel is not an account of an adventure at sea; instead, Raban finds his subjects in the past and in isolated towns. Although the novel is subtitled The Sea and Its Meaning, the waters of Alaska are largely peripheral to Raban's voyage of self-discovery...
This Valentine's Day, "Someone likes you" might be a thing of the past...