Books : Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 918.30466
EAN: 9780375753657
ISBN: 0375753656
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: March 16, 1999
Publisher: Modern Library
Release Date: March 16, 1999
Sales Rank: 491490
Studio: Modern Library
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Product Description:
Squeezed between a vast ocean and the longest mountain range on earth, Chile is 2,600 miles long and never more than 110 miles wide--not a country that lends itself to maps, as Sara Wheeler discovered when she traveled alone from the top to the bottom, from the driest desert in the world to the sepulchral wastes of Antarctica. Eloquent, astute, nimble with history and deftly amusing, Travels in a Thin Country established Sara Wheeler as one of the very best travel writers in the world.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This is a 2006 reissue of a book written more than ten years earlier, and in her introduction to the reissue the author describes it as a young woman's book, but she is too kind: a rather silly and ignorant book would be more accurate. The central problem is that she doesn't seem to have decided what sort of book she was trying to write. A travel book may fall into one of three genres: a tourist guide, an analysis of the political and social character of the country visited, or an account of the adventures experienced by the author. Sara Wheeler doesn't appear to have had any adventures, so the third of these is a non-starter, but her book fails in both of the other two as well: it has too few descriptions of the places visited and too many accounts of the conversations she had about politics to succeed as a tourist guide; as a social and political analysis it has much too much chit-chat. In any case case her knowledge of Chile is very superficial -- the kind of thing she would have heard from her political exile friends in London before she went, rather than things she saw with her own eyes. One has the impression that her main objective was to confirm the ideas she had before going to Chile, and within Chile she stayed (amongst other places, of course) at the British Embassy and on the estates of very wealthy people, where no doubt, she was able to confirm her prejudices. She tells us, for example, that the Chilean population is riddled with anti-semitism: she could easily ... Read More
Rating:  -
Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile (Modern Library)A very intertaining journal of travels through Chile.
Rating:  -
Since I did a similar trip to the one in this book a few years ago, I was curious to see whether Sara and I also had the same experience. We didn't.
Whereas I just left home, Sara apparently first spent much time learning Spanish and gathering a network of contacts in Chile, including a number of official tourist offices that gave her free or cheap accommodation and transportation, very briefly mentioned here and there. Her contacts in Santiago, some at the British Embassy and some filthy rich families, Chile's de facto aristocracy, gives her access to interesting people and a level of luxury that "normal" travellers seldom encounter.
So reading the book is not the best way to figure out what you can expect to see and do on your own trip through Chile. Nevertheless there's a lot of background information about the country which may be useful to you. Also because she did her trip in the early 1990s, so a LOT has changed since then. All the destinations she mentions are still very much open to tourism, and you get a general idea of what they are like. I was disappointed that she only spent half a day in Torres del Paine, which to me was the most beautiful spot in the country. Also, she goes to "Chilean Antarctica", but there's not much of value to be gathered from reading her account of it. She only spent one day there, being guided by Chilean officials in and around a tiny settlement.
Sometimes she's funny in a very British manner, but it ... Read More
Rating:  -
I read the book and thought it dullish-
I agree with the previous reviewer that it did not come to life.
I also thought the book dishonest. Sara had what appeared to be a long line of lovers on this trip- a man named Pepe that she slept on a deserted island with, yet there is no mention of sex or how most of these men came into her trip or out of it.
some of her ideas, like spending two nights with three Chilian police officers was down right stupid or hitchhiking with Bolivian loggers. I wonder if she knows that many men in many cultures have one word for this kind of woman?
Not that I care whether she did or not, but she took risks that seemed
stupid- and I dont appreciate her withholding the truth,especially when
other women might think she gave them the green light and then they end
up raped.
so did Sara have a love life that she hid in a prudish manner?
Seeing how much she was holding back , made me realize she was writing
a clean-up dull version that Hallmark or Her Mother would approve of.
Rating:  -
I disagree with the other reviewer's comments who felt he had to slog through the book waiting for it to payoff. I thoroughly enjoyed Sara Wheeler's writing on Chile and reccomend this book to anyone who has traveled to Chile or is contemplating a trip.
I started reading her book at the end of a 2-week adventure in Chile and many of her comments and thoughts resonated with my own experiences in Chile. I hated to leave the country and its beauty behind, but her book allowed me to retain and relive the magic of my own trip for another week+ as I savored her writing.
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