Tracks
Tracks, by Robyn Davidson
Blurb:Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.I always enjoy true stories and what makes this even better is that it's actually written by the person who had he adventure, instead of someone they hired to write it to make them look good. It was well written and brutally honest when it came to the fact that she was sometimes less than gentle with her animals, though she loved them, that much was obvious. Despite being so honest though, I felt a certain detachment from Robyn, but then it seemed as if she didn't even know herself, so how was the reader supposed to get to know her?Her journey was amazing and inspiring. She even made me feel fond towards the camels, a creature I've never really been endeared to. The people she met were just as amazing as her journey; I loved Eddie and the way he acted like a protective father! Diggity was also really adorable and I felt genuinely moved at the end.Finally, I liked the pictures, though I would have liked more and would have preferred them to be interspersed throughout the text, not all in the middle.This book made me want to go and have my own adventure!My favourite quotes from 'Tracks':'I came to realise that you can understand and excuse until there is nothing left to hate.''It's important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it's hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we've learnt even if what we do changes us and we risk not recognising each other when we return.''I believe the subconscious always knows what is best. It is our conditioned, vastly overrated rational mind which screws everything up.''How animals ever forgive us for what we do to them, I will never understand.''When you are used to being the queen, it is hard to consider democracy replacing lone rule.''I was soon to discover that the method know as trial and error was a vastly overrated way of learning to do something.''... if you weren't part of the solution, you were part of the problem.''Camels, so everyone says, are tough, hardy creatures, but perhaps mine were so pampered that they had turned into hypochondriacs;''If there is sexism amongst Aborigines today; it is because they have learnt well from their conquerors.''The land was not wild but tame, bountiful, benign, giving, as long as you knew how to see it, how to be part of it.''Capacity for survival may be the ability to be changed by environment.''I had learnt what love was. That love wanted the best possible for those you cared for even if that excluded yourself. That before, I had wanted to possess people without loving them, and now I could love them and wish them the best without needing them.''When I look back I marvel at myself. At what makes me instantly apologetic to people I have stood up to when they have been prepared to walk all over me.'
Blurb:Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.I always enjoy true stories and what makes this even better is that it's actually written by the person who had he adventure, instead of someone they hired to write it to make them look good. It was well written and brutally honest when it came to the fact that she was sometimes less than gentle with her animals, though she loved them, that much was obvious. Despite being so honest though, I felt a certain detachment from Robyn, but then it seemed as if she didn't even know herself, so how was the reader supposed to get to know her?Her journey was amazing and inspiring. She even made me feel fond towards the camels, a creature I've never really been endeared to. The people she met were just as amazing as her journey; I loved Eddie and the way he acted like a protective father! Diggity was also really adorable and I felt genuinely moved at the end.Finally, I liked the pictures, though I would have liked more and would have preferred them to be interspersed throughout the text, not all in the middle.This book made me want to go and have my own adventure!My favourite quotes from 'Tracks':'I came to realise that you can understand and excuse until there is nothing left to hate.''It's important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it's hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we've learnt even if what we do changes us and we risk not recognising each other when we return.''I believe the subconscious always knows what is best. It is our conditioned, vastly overrated rational mind which screws everything up.''How animals ever forgive us for what we do to them, I will never understand.''When you are used to being the queen, it is hard to consider democracy replacing lone rule.''I was soon to discover that the method know as trial and error was a vastly overrated way of learning to do something.''... if you weren't part of the solution, you were part of the problem.''Camels, so everyone says, are tough, hardy creatures, but perhaps mine were so pampered that they had turned into hypochondriacs;''If there is sexism amongst Aborigines today; it is because they have learnt well from their conquerors.''The land was not wild but tame, bountiful, benign, giving, as long as you knew how to see it, how to be part of it.''Capacity for survival may be the ability to be changed by environment.''I had learnt what love was. That love wanted the best possible for those you cared for even if that excluded yourself. That before, I had wanted to possess people without loving them, and now I could love them and wish them the best without needing them.''When I look back I marvel at myself. At what makes me instantly apologetic to people I have stood up to when they have been prepared to walk all over me.'
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