Gail Pool's Blog, page 16
January 22, 2016
The Story of Crime
I've been rereading Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's procedurals--a superb series: lean, atmospheric, intelligent, and funny. The authors considered the ten entries in the series essentially one book: "The Story of Crime," and I think that reading them together intensifies their best qualities.
January 5, 2016
Great new review!
Great new review of Lost Among the Baining on Amazon and LibraryThing by Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, Booklover:
I loved this book. I could just stop with that, but that probably wouldn't be fair to author Gail Pool. It's her own story, but I hesitate to call it a memoir, mostly because, well, here's what she says about memoirs -
"I loathe memoir. I dislike writing about myself - I seldom write anything about myself - and I dislike all this writing about selves that now permeates our literary world. The narcissism. The self-regard. The self-drama!"
or
"In truth I have no desire to write something personal. I say this to myself, and I say it to others as well. I say it often. Our world is too full of the personal: all these memoirs - HOW I GOT TO BE ME, WHY I LIKE BEING ME, WHY I HATE BEING ME ..."
And yet LOST AMONG THE BAINING, is a book which is, more than anything else, all about Gail Pool and her husband Jeremy (in fact at one point, she even suggested to him that they write it together, at which he laughed). But it's not just about them, and their long contentious marriage of nearly fifty years. It's about one particular sixteen-month period at the end of the sixties - a time they spent doing field work among the Baining, a very primitive tribe of New Britain, in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It was a very difficult time. They were there because Jeremy needed to do "field work" as an Anthropology student. Gail was not sure what her role in this should be and she had no desire to be "just the wife." Both high achievers and Harvard grads, the Pools' marriage is one of continuous but unacknowledged competition, a source of constant friction. Their time with the Baining, a tribe which lived as close to the bone as one can imagine, stuck with them for more than forty years, an unscratchable itch. The experience was so unpleasant, so demoralizing and defeating, that Jeremy quit anthropology, and finally ended up working in computer software - a long way from the study of primitive peoples. Gail got additional degrees, in Creative Writing and Library Science, but continued to stew quietly over that Baining experience, which haunted them over the next forty years. Until they finally decided to go back. And they did. Therein pretty much hangs their tale.
What makes the Pools' story so delightful, so charming, and often very funny, is the author's self-deprecating sense of humor, her ability to poke fun at her younger self, and at her older self too for that matter. Because, as I've already said, although there is plenty here about the frustratingly taciturn Baining people, and the hazards and tribulations of journeying into the remote jungled mountains and then living there under the most Spartan of conditions, on a diet of mostly taro root, with little personal privacy, this is most of all a book about Gail Pool. And how she acts, adjusts (or fails to), complains, rails, whines, screams, throws things, etc. And not just in the jungle, but for years afterward. She doesn't pull any punches, she does not spare herself. Indeed, sometimes she just does not seem like a very nice person. And yet, and yet - I have to say that this was one of the funniest damn memoirs (yup, sorry, Gail; it's a memoir, all about YOU, YOU, YOU) I have read in years. I chuckled, I laughed, I guffawed. All of the above.
Okay then. It's a memoir, and it's a damn funny one. Not your usual kind of memoir, I'll admit, turning as it does on that one pivotal period of the Pools' life, when they were very young. In fact, I'm still a little curious about the author's early years, about her childhood on the Lower East Side of New York City, and what sounds like a rather unhappy family life which may have driven her into a too-early, too-young marriage. She remains strangely silent on these things, and that is her right. Such omissions do not harm the quality of her story at all. It is simply a peach of a memoir. (Yup, MEMOIR!) I think I've come full circle, so this time I will stop. I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. Very, very highly recommended.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
I loved this book. I could just stop with that, but that probably wouldn't be fair to author Gail Pool. It's her own story, but I hesitate to call it a memoir, mostly because, well, here's what she says about memoirs -
"I loathe memoir. I dislike writing about myself - I seldom write anything about myself - and I dislike all this writing about selves that now permeates our literary world. The narcissism. The self-regard. The self-drama!"
or
"In truth I have no desire to write something personal. I say this to myself, and I say it to others as well. I say it often. Our world is too full of the personal: all these memoirs - HOW I GOT TO BE ME, WHY I LIKE BEING ME, WHY I HATE BEING ME ..."
And yet LOST AMONG THE BAINING, is a book which is, more than anything else, all about Gail Pool and her husband Jeremy (in fact at one point, she even suggested to him that they write it together, at which he laughed). But it's not just about them, and their long contentious marriage of nearly fifty years. It's about one particular sixteen-month period at the end of the sixties - a time they spent doing field work among the Baining, a very primitive tribe of New Britain, in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It was a very difficult time. They were there because Jeremy needed to do "field work" as an Anthropology student. Gail was not sure what her role in this should be and she had no desire to be "just the wife." Both high achievers and Harvard grads, the Pools' marriage is one of continuous but unacknowledged competition, a source of constant friction. Their time with the Baining, a tribe which lived as close to the bone as one can imagine, stuck with them for more than forty years, an unscratchable itch. The experience was so unpleasant, so demoralizing and defeating, that Jeremy quit anthropology, and finally ended up working in computer software - a long way from the study of primitive peoples. Gail got additional degrees, in Creative Writing and Library Science, but continued to stew quietly over that Baining experience, which haunted them over the next forty years. Until they finally decided to go back. And they did. Therein pretty much hangs their tale.
What makes the Pools' story so delightful, so charming, and often very funny, is the author's self-deprecating sense of humor, her ability to poke fun at her younger self, and at her older self too for that matter. Because, as I've already said, although there is plenty here about the frustratingly taciturn Baining people, and the hazards and tribulations of journeying into the remote jungled mountains and then living there under the most Spartan of conditions, on a diet of mostly taro root, with little personal privacy, this is most of all a book about Gail Pool. And how she acts, adjusts (or fails to), complains, rails, whines, screams, throws things, etc. And not just in the jungle, but for years afterward. She doesn't pull any punches, she does not spare herself. Indeed, sometimes she just does not seem like a very nice person. And yet, and yet - I have to say that this was one of the funniest damn memoirs (yup, sorry, Gail; it's a memoir, all about YOU, YOU, YOU) I have read in years. I chuckled, I laughed, I guffawed. All of the above.
Okay then. It's a memoir, and it's a damn funny one. Not your usual kind of memoir, I'll admit, turning as it does on that one pivotal period of the Pools' life, when they were very young. In fact, I'm still a little curious about the author's early years, about her childhood on the Lower East Side of New York City, and what sounds like a rather unhappy family life which may have driven her into a too-early, too-young marriage. She remains strangely silent on these things, and that is her right. Such omissions do not harm the quality of her story at all. It is simply a peach of a memoir. (Yup, MEMOIR!) I think I've come full circle, so this time I will stop. I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. Very, very highly recommended.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
December 26, 2015
Book Review
Crete By Barry Unsworth. National Geographic, 2004, 170 pp. Even for the Greeks of old, Crete was the most venerable and ancient place imaginable, says the novelist Barry Unsworth in his chronicle of a trip he took to the island with his wife one spring. According to myth, Crete was the birthplace of Zeus, and it was where Zeus later carried Europa, daughter of a Phoenician king, having seduced her in the shape of a bull. Crete then, not only gave Europe its name, it was where Europe began, h...
Barry Unsworth's "Crete"
Crete By Barry Unsworth. National Geographic, 2004, 170 pp. Even for the Greeks of old, Crete was the most venerable and ancient place imaginable, says the novelist Barry Unsworth in his chronicle of a trip he took to the island with his wife one spring. According to myth, Crete was the birthplace of Zeus, and it was where Zeus later carried Europa, daughter of a Phoenician king, having seduced her in the shape of a bull. Crete then, not only gave Europe its name, it was where Europe began, h...
December 24, 2015
Goodreads Giveaway
Last two weeks for Goodreads Giveaway!
Lost Among the Baining: Adventure, Marriage, and Other Fieldwork.
"Provocative," "inspiring," "haunting," and "laugh-out-loud funny."
Lost Among the Baining: Adventure, Marriage, and Other Fieldwork.
"Provocative," "inspiring," "haunting," and "laugh-out-loud funny."
December 22, 2015
Links of Interest
Four "newish" travel magazines noted by Wynelle Evans, a writer interested in travel. "Have not read the magazines themselves" yet, she says, but thought they might of interest: Avaunt Sidetracked The Travel Almanac Roads & Kingdoms If you do take a look at these publications, please let readers here know what you think.
Travel Magazines
Four "newish" travel magazines noted by Wynelle Evans, a writer interested in travel. "Have not read the magazines themselves" yet, she says, but thought they might of interest: Avaunt Sidetracked The Travel Almanac Roads & Kingdoms If you do take a look at these publications, please let readers here know what you think.
December 16, 2015
December 15, 2015
Links of Interest
A list of favorite books from Ben Redmond (via Twitter): The Best 11 Travel Books I Read in 2015
From Ben Redmond (via Twitter): Best 11 Travel Books I Read in 2015
A list of favorite books from Ben Redmond (via Twitter): The Best 11 Travel Books I Read in 2015
