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India Bound
After traveling overland to India and Nepal, Shelley Buck has returned to Europe, but is haunted. She dreams of going back to Asia and of becoming a journalist. It's the early 1970s. Women don't often set out to become intrepid journalists, but Shelley can't help herself and she makes plans. This time she will take a typewriter.
278 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2019
About the author
Shelley Buck
6 books6 followersInspired by a book purchased at Fred and Pat Cody's legendary bookstore on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, I took off alone in 1972 on a journey I hoped would take me overland to India and Nepal. East chronicles that journey and my emergence into adulthood. Afterwards I began writing about travel and the experiences of Americans as they encounter a wider world.
You can read more about my books at http://www.shelleybuck.com or more or my short writing at http://epicaro.com
You can read more about my books at http://www.shelleybuck.com or more or my short writing at http://epicaro.com
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2020
Review of India Bound by Shelley Buck
India Bound, Shelley Buck’s sequel to East: A Woman on the Road to Kathmandu, describes what resides in a woman’s heart and a way to answer that deep longing to break from convention and follow the query: Is there more? She likens herself to a migrating bird: she had no choice but to follow her instincts and go.
This author’s style of writing masterfully invites us to travel right along with her, from the decision to return to India, to the poignant exchange of clothing between herself and a female roadside vendor in Rajasthan, to a heart-pounding encounter at the Afghan border crossing and more. I found myself championing her decision to return to India, this time to incorporate and make sense of her earlier travels and place them within a wider context. No one can argue with a person who decides to be a student of the world, soaking in even the tiniest and seemingly insignificant experiences and encounters around her
Buck writes from a collaborative perspective between her younger eager self whose journey made her a feminist and her older self who had some idea of what to expect upon her return to India and the countries along the way. This second trip had the potential to make her a journalist. Both of these roles captured my interest and attention. I needed to know how a young woman in the 1970’s set about doing this; what propelled her to go in the first place, let alone return?
I found Buck’s exploration of the concept of parallax (the effect whereby the position of an object appears to subtly shift when viewed from different positions, such as through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera) illuminating. She sees one thing and her camera records another, albeit a subtle difference. On her first trip, she photographed much of what she encountered and needed to account for this shift in view, both with camera and her personal viewpoint. By the time of her second trip, through-the-lens cameras replaced those with viewfinders. What she viewed and captured with this new type of camera resulted in a photograph almost identical to what she saw. So too, she records different perspectives while visiting these places a second time.
India Bound helped me appreciate the risk a woman of that time (1970’s) took to break out of a conventional and restrictive societal role to follow her heart and her interests. Buck conveys her passion to understand and appreciate the greater world and immerses herself in the cultures she encounters along the way. I may never get to India, but this book encourages me to ask the question: “Is there more?”
India Bound, Shelley Buck’s sequel to East: A Woman on the Road to Kathmandu, describes what resides in a woman’s heart and a way to answer that deep longing to break from convention and follow the query: Is there more? She likens herself to a migrating bird: she had no choice but to follow her instincts and go.
This author’s style of writing masterfully invites us to travel right along with her, from the decision to return to India, to the poignant exchange of clothing between herself and a female roadside vendor in Rajasthan, to a heart-pounding encounter at the Afghan border crossing and more. I found myself championing her decision to return to India, this time to incorporate and make sense of her earlier travels and place them within a wider context. No one can argue with a person who decides to be a student of the world, soaking in even the tiniest and seemingly insignificant experiences and encounters around her
Buck writes from a collaborative perspective between her younger eager self whose journey made her a feminist and her older self who had some idea of what to expect upon her return to India and the countries along the way. This second trip had the potential to make her a journalist. Both of these roles captured my interest and attention. I needed to know how a young woman in the 1970’s set about doing this; what propelled her to go in the first place, let alone return?
I found Buck’s exploration of the concept of parallax (the effect whereby the position of an object appears to subtly shift when viewed from different positions, such as through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera) illuminating. She sees one thing and her camera records another, albeit a subtle difference. On her first trip, she photographed much of what she encountered and needed to account for this shift in view, both with camera and her personal viewpoint. By the time of her second trip, through-the-lens cameras replaced those with viewfinders. What she viewed and captured with this new type of camera resulted in a photograph almost identical to what she saw. So too, she records different perspectives while visiting these places a second time.
India Bound helped me appreciate the risk a woman of that time (1970’s) took to break out of a conventional and restrictive societal role to follow her heart and her interests. Buck conveys her passion to understand and appreciate the greater world and immerses herself in the cultures she encounters along the way. I may never get to India, but this book encourages me to ask the question: “Is there more?”
May 23, 2019
I love travel memoirs and I really enjoyed this.
Until recently, I had never heard of travelling overland to eg. India-I thought sailing or flying was the only way to travel these kind of distances. I love travel memoirs so I knew this would be interesting. I do have this author's first book, ‘East: A Woman on the Road to Kathmandu’, but haven't read it yet. It would be interesting to see how this works as a standalone. It absolutely did-and made me hungry to read her other book too. She longed to go back to India. This book covers her second journey there and is an interesting and fascinating read.
The book got off to a great start, she captured the atmosphere perfectly. Stark differences between her home in America and where she was staying in Berlin with Eva, a friend. At this time, when she'd gone on her trip to India and Nepal she developed and printed her own photos. She decided to become a journalist-she already did photography, and wrote-she could use those skills to earn herself a better living and travel. That was the theory-but how would she start?
About more than just India. Shelley's travels take you to Germany, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, Istanbul, Tehran, Afghanistan, then to India. As she says, she doesn't mind, the actual getting to India will be an important part of the journey, rather than just flying straight there. More of an adventure, I think. Along the way, she includes plenty of info and history about the places, and the foods.
That's why I love memoirs; you get to hear about places and things you've never heard of before, never been to etc. and, if it's all written about and described, as in this book, it's like you're going there with the author. She mentions some of the events going on in the world at the time of her journey. She also tells of her adventures, her thoughts and feelings, illness, and people she meets and travels with.
As she often mentions her photography, I was a little disappointed not to see photos in the book. I wondered if she would perhaps put a link in the book to some pictures on her website?
Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for providing me with a pre-publication copy of this book.
Until recently, I had never heard of travelling overland to eg. India-I thought sailing or flying was the only way to travel these kind of distances. I love travel memoirs so I knew this would be interesting. I do have this author's first book, ‘East: A Woman on the Road to Kathmandu’, but haven't read it yet. It would be interesting to see how this works as a standalone. It absolutely did-and made me hungry to read her other book too. She longed to go back to India. This book covers her second journey there and is an interesting and fascinating read.
The book got off to a great start, she captured the atmosphere perfectly. Stark differences between her home in America and where she was staying in Berlin with Eva, a friend. At this time, when she'd gone on her trip to India and Nepal she developed and printed her own photos. She decided to become a journalist-she already did photography, and wrote-she could use those skills to earn herself a better living and travel. That was the theory-but how would she start?
About more than just India. Shelley's travels take you to Germany, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, Istanbul, Tehran, Afghanistan, then to India. As she says, she doesn't mind, the actual getting to India will be an important part of the journey, rather than just flying straight there. More of an adventure, I think. Along the way, she includes plenty of info and history about the places, and the foods.
That's why I love memoirs; you get to hear about places and things you've never heard of before, never been to etc. and, if it's all written about and described, as in this book, it's like you're going there with the author. She mentions some of the events going on in the world at the time of her journey. She also tells of her adventures, her thoughts and feelings, illness, and people she meets and travels with.
As she often mentions her photography, I was a little disappointed not to see photos in the book. I wondered if she would perhaps put a link in the book to some pictures on her website?
Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for providing me with a pre-publication copy of this book.
September 11, 2019
"India Bound" is Shelley Buck's second book about her adventurous and perilous land journeys to India in the 1970's, before war made that kind of trip almost impossible. After her first trip, recounted in "East", she recovered and regrouped in Germany and Sweden, where a feeling of unfinished mission drove her to return to India with the ambitious aspiration expressed in the new book's subtitle, "The Making of a Woman Journalist".
Before Shelley even sets out for India again, she soaks up the grim post-war atmosphere in West Berlin and the more prosperous society in Stockholm and its surroundings. She describes those days with the unique perspective of a would-be journalist who has to make her living through odd jobs on the fringes of Western European societies where her language skills are limited. She manages to compare and contrast those cultures with each other, as well as with the American culture of her background, and her recent experiences in the Middle East and India. She gives striking examples of each and finds both historical and modern interconnections between all the regions in language and customs.
Now, with this new vision, she has to see India again to put it all into a larger perspective and try to find her place as a feminist in the modern world where ancient cultures are changing and disappearing, and new roles for women are emerging.
Her travels through Nepal and India are arduous and life-threatening but full of encounters with unusual people and situations that resonate over time and place, and provide vivid snapshots of moments in a world that has changed irrevocably in the last 45-or so-years.
Before Shelley even sets out for India again, she soaks up the grim post-war atmosphere in West Berlin and the more prosperous society in Stockholm and its surroundings. She describes those days with the unique perspective of a would-be journalist who has to make her living through odd jobs on the fringes of Western European societies where her language skills are limited. She manages to compare and contrast those cultures with each other, as well as with the American culture of her background, and her recent experiences in the Middle East and India. She gives striking examples of each and finds both historical and modern interconnections between all the regions in language and customs.
Now, with this new vision, she has to see India again to put it all into a larger perspective and try to find her place as a feminist in the modern world where ancient cultures are changing and disappearing, and new roles for women are emerging.
Her travels through Nepal and India are arduous and life-threatening but full of encounters with unusual people and situations that resonate over time and place, and provide vivid snapshots of moments in a world that has changed irrevocably in the last 45-or so-years.
May 20, 2020
I’ve always wanted to visit India and Shelley Buck’s tapestry of vivid observations and insightful responses to the vast land help me feel prepared. The author situates her story in a rich historical and cultural context as she weaves in her ever transforming personal views on the contrasts she faces at every turn, from northern villages into Bombay-now Mumbai-to Delhi to places unknown to the average American. What makes this book so delicious is her marvelous use of the English language such as when she is “Stranded and waiting for money, I live here now, at least temporarily. I eat, I shop, I walk with friends, I meet people face to face. I take pictures. I sit in the sun writing notes in a school notebook. I wash off the powdered dye. But I don’t put two and two together.
It's an election year. Thousands of demonstrators also crowd the tree-lined avenues. Police and protesters glare at one another. This it is not some timeless India, enduring recurring afflictions that began thousands of years ago. It is trouble, right now. A political emergency that I don’t know anything about is exploding under my nose.
And though no one is using the word, there is also famine. But I don’t really understand this. Not yet.” And Buck goes on to understand the large and the small of it, and write so her readers can, as well. She writes with deep perspectives gained from her recursive experiences in that area of the world, inviting readers to journey along, then close India Bound’s covers, step away from the pages and go see for themselves, carrying her wisdom as a ground bed for their own understandings.
It's an election year. Thousands of demonstrators also crowd the tree-lined avenues. Police and protesters glare at one another. This it is not some timeless India, enduring recurring afflictions that began thousands of years ago. It is trouble, right now. A political emergency that I don’t know anything about is exploding under my nose.
And though no one is using the word, there is also famine. But I don’t really understand this. Not yet.” And Buck goes on to understand the large and the small of it, and write so her readers can, as well. She writes with deep perspectives gained from her recursive experiences in that area of the world, inviting readers to journey along, then close India Bound’s covers, step away from the pages and go see for themselves, carrying her wisdom as a ground bed for their own understandings.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews