Stranger in the Forest (African Tales Book 2)

With haunting, lyrical prose, Marlene Van Niekerk creates a story of love and family loyalty. Debut novel about growing up black in white suburbs, where the cost of fitting in can be your very identity. Redefining what it means to be young, black and beautiful in the the New South Africa. Winner of the European Union Literary Award. Nadine Morgan travels the world as a journalist, covering important events, following dangerous leads, and running from anything that might tie her down. Jason, an American student, was beaten to death by angry local youths at the height of the apartheid era.

From the slums of Cape Town to the palaces of Algiers, through Pygmy villages where pineapples grow wild, to the Gulf of Guinea where the sea blazes with oil flares, across two continents and fourteen countries — this epic journey is nothing to swallows, they do it twice a year.

But for Horatio Clare, writer and birdwatcher, it is the expedition of a lifetime. Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being. A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time when he was living in a rundown cottage in the Cape Town suburbs with his widowed father — a time, the biographer is convinced, when Coetzee was finding himself as a writer.

Never having met the man himself, the biographer interviews five people who knew Coetzee well, including a married woman with whom he had an affair, his cousin Margot, and a Brazilian dancer whose daughter took English lessons with him. These accounts add up to an image of an awkward, reserved, and bookish young man who finds it hard to make meaningful connections with the people around him. A split-second decision with no second chance: On a blowtorch-hot night in Cape Town, American ex-model Roxy Palmer and her gunrunner husband, Joe, are carjacked, leaving Joe lying in a pool of blood.

As the carjackers make their getaway, Roxy makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever. Abigail Bukula was fifteen years old when her parents were killed in a massacre of antiapartheid activists by white apartheid security forces. Because a young soldier spoke up in her defense, she was spared.

So when he walks into her office almost twenty years later, needing her help, she vows to do whatever she can. Someone is slowly killing off members of the team who raided the house where her parents were murdered, and now Leon and an imprisoned colonel are the only targets left. When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there —her fiance Edward, whom she has not seen for five years.

When Ada is born, Cathleen recognizes in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she cannot with her own family. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men—one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only when the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness.

Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a skeptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. He lived in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to the desert towns deep in the Ethiopian hinterland. In a city that has lost its shimmer, Lindanathi and his two friends Ruan and Cecelia sell illegal pharmaceuticals while chasing their next high.

When a puzzling masked man enters their lives, Lindanathi is faced with a decision: Thirty-eight-year-old Sally is but one of the victims. Her life brutally cut short, she narrates from her vantage point in the afterlife and watches as her sister, Adele, her brother-in-law and unrequited love Liam, her niece Bryony, and her teenage daughter, Gigi, begin to make sense of the tragedy. A woman who likes to cook a lot and write a little. Tannie Maria writes recipes for a column in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. One Sunday morning, as Maria savours the breeze through the kitchen window whilst making apricot jam, she hears the screech and bump that announces the arrival of her good friend and editor Harriet.

Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbours. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility which they prune with a zeal that belies the fact that they are both over eighty. But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. And gradually the bickering and sniping softens into lively debate, and from there into memories shared. At this point Knight was being held in jail for his burglaries, and after some correspondence, Finkel flew to Maine to meet him.

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

It was difficult getting Knight to open up, but eventually he shared stories of his time in the woods, and some reasons why he felt the need to escape society. It's a similarly fascinating story about a young man, Christopher McCandless, who felt the need to escape into nature, although McCandless ended up dying alone in Alaska.

What Finkel was able to do in The Stranger in the Woods is to get a modern-day hermit to talk about his reasons for wanting solitude in nature and for isolating himself from other humans. The insights into Knight's behavior were interesting and thought-provoking. Interacting with others was so often frustrating. Every meeting with another person seemed like a collision. There are also great literary references throughout the book, since Knight liked to read so much. I would highly recommend The Stranger in the Woods to everyone. Favorite Quotes "In many cultures hermits have long been considered founts of wisdom, explorers of life's great mysteries.

In others they're seen as cursed by the devil. What did Knight wish to tell us? What secrets had he uncovered? Pine needles and mud don't make you dirty, except superficially. The muck that matters, the bad bacteria, the evil virus, is typically passed through coughs and sneezes and handshakes and kisses. The price of sociability is sometimes our health. Knight quarantined himself from the human race and thus avoided our biohazards.

He stayed phenomenally healthy. The life inside a book always felt welcoming to Knight. It pressed no demands on him, while the world of actual human interactions was so complex. Conversations between people can move like tennis games, swift and unpredictable. There are constant subtle visual and verbal cues, there's innuendo, sarcasm, body language, tone.

Everyone occasionally fumbles an encounter, a victim of social clumsiness. It's part of being human. To Knight, it all felt impossible. His engagement with the written word might have been the closest he could come to genuine human encounters. That's my form of travel. The further we push aloneness away, the less we are able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is We live locked in our own heads and can never entirely know the experience of another person.

The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

Even if we're surrounded by family and friends, we journey into death completely alone. View all 13 comments. Michael Finkel's The Stranger in the Woods is the mesmerizing account of Christopher Knight's disappearance into Maine's forests for 27 years. For reasons Knight himself never fully articulates, he abandoned civilization for a hermit's life in his early twenties. Knight made his home in a small camp encircled by concealing boulders and dense flora just three minutes by foot from a nearby cabin.

Developing into a master thief, he survived by stealing from the cabins and camps in the area -- tho Michael Finkel's The Stranger in the Woods is the mesmerizing account of Christopher Knight's disappearance into Maine's forests for 27 years. Developing into a master thief, he survived by stealing from the cabins and camps in the area -- though never from his unwitting host's home. His ability to survive unmolested for so long at the edge of civilization in such a hostile climate testifies to his amazing abilities and perseverance. Finkel is a capable and captivating writer whose efforts here were hamstrung by Knight's recalcitrance.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Knight proved a reluctant, taciturn participant in the author's effort to memorialize his amazing story of survival. That Knight willingly met and corresponded with the writer as much as he did proved amazing. But Knight provided Finkel with few direct insights into what his decades in the woods taught him, and doubtless had many adventures he will never share with anyone. Despite Christopher Knight's limited cooperation, Michael Finkel presents a masterful portrait of the recluse, offering fascinating perspectives and theories on the life and motivations of this modern-day hermit.

Writing a book about such a reluctant subject takes rare skill, perceptiveness, and patience. I highly recommend it. View all 11 comments. All The Books Podcast. It is another world altogether, literally offering a deeper level of thought, a journey to the bedrock of the self. No communication with the outside world or other beings? I can remember a time in my mid twenties when my routine was as follows: Thereafter, I would shut myself in at home with awesome reading material, my dogs, and some classic movies usually long epics that would slowly smolder over the weekend.

I craved this quiet time away from people, even on social media, which to this day I find grating. Work and social interactions just depleted me during the week, and I found these weekends restorative at a very hard time of my life. It was about this time that I read Into the Wild , and it moved me to my core.

I am an introvert, but that doens't mean that I don't enjoy people and socializing.

However, at my core, I am most content when on my own with my animals. It warms my heart when I read about others who are similar. When I heard about this book and Knight's quarter century lived out of doors, alone but surrounded by people, I knew I had to read it! I was not disappointed at all, because I could understand what he was seeking, albeit his solace at times put him in great danger of losing his life. His isolation felt more like a communion. To put it romantically, I was completely free' This loss of self was precisely what Knight experienced in the forest. In public, one always wears a social mask, a presentation to the world.

He let go of all artifice; he became no one and everyone. I wish it hadn't ended so abruptly. I was hopeful but a little sad, too. The afterword and acknowledgment pages provided a lot of supplemental reading material on solitude and other hermits that I'll definitely be looking into. View all 15 comments. I was sent this book from Goodreads.

I really enjoyed this book. More than I thought I would. View all 3 comments. Interesting and thought provoking story. While you may go into this thinking the hermit has issues, you will come out of it thinking the author also has issues. View all 5 comments. Christopher Knight walked into the woods of Maine and lived in isolation for 27 years.

He was an introverted, intelligent twenty-year-old with a dry sense of humor. He had been brought up in a family that prided themselves on their practical skills and self-reliance, and set up a camp hidden by large boulders. But Knight had to steal food, batteries, books, and other supplies from a nearby children's camp and from vacation cabins in central Maine. He waited until the vacation homes were vacant b Christopher Knight walked into the woods of Maine and lived in isolation for 27 years.

He waited until the vacation homes were vacant before breaking in, but the homeowners felt frightened and tense as over burglaries occurred in the area. When he was finally caught stealing by a game warden, Knight felt deep remorse. Knight had survived brutally cold winters, extreme hunger, and terrible mosquitoes. He never got sick because he had almost no exposure to the bacteria and viruses that humans pass to each other. Knight was evaluated by psychologists, but he did not really fit a particular diagnosis, although he exhibited some traits of autism and schizoid personality disorder.

Why would someone want to be socially isolated? If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of sociability--and high quantities of the hormone vasopressin, which may suppress your need for affection, you tend to require fewer interpersonal relationships. The author and Knight shared a love of camping and reading that created enough of a bond that Knight talked to Finkel.

Background information about other famous hermits in history was also interesting. But those historical figures usually had help from the church or friends who provided their food. This was an engaging story told with compassion. I found the story of Christopher Knight so fascinating that I had my head buried in the book all day. March Second reading: October for book club View all 22 comments. This book tells the story of Christopher Knight who became known as the 'North Po "Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all cost; but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally In , just a couple of years after graduating from high school, Chris Knight left his young life behind and entered the Maine woods where he would live in complete solitude until his arrest nearly three decades later for stealing food form the Pine Tree Camp for disabled children.

Chris Knight spent those years living in a tent he had cleverly modified with odds and ends he had stolen from empty cabins. These empty cabins were also the source of his food, clothing, batteries, propane tanks and even books. It was only through the diligence of a particular ranger with the Maine Forest Service that he was ultimately captured at Pine Tree Camp.

Although I had not heard of Chris Knight's story prior to reading this book, it apparently had captured the attention and imagination of numerous journalists Finkel sent a letter to Chris Knight in jail and to his surprise, Chris Knight wrote him a letter in return.

The two corresponded through 8 letters and cards and eventually, Mr. Finkel made trips to the jail in Maine where Chris Knight reluctantly met with him a total of 9 times. This book is a result of that correspondence and those jailhouse visits. From the conversations between Mr. Finkel and Chris Knight, it was clear that Chris Knight is an intelligent and articulate man; but it is also clear that he was experiencing a great deal of difficulty in trying to assimilate first into his life in jail and later, he would experience the same struggles at his family's home.

Chris Knight related to Mr. Finkel that he did not like to be touched in any way. He also could not maintain eye contact.. There's too much information. He believed that people throughout history who had endeavored to live such a lifestyle had discoveries and knowledge to share with the rest of the world. If he was hoping to receive such knowledge from Chris Knight, however, I can't help but believe he must have felt somewhat disappointed.

If Chris Knight had made any discoveries or had come to any conclusions about life or in particular, about a life in solitude, he either could not or would not articulate that wisdom. Although He spent every day for nearly 30 years reading or simply sitting in silence and observing the world around him, he had no real wisdom to share In fact, it had been his intention to spend the rest of his life in his self-created solitude.

He found life among society unbearably painful Was Chris Knight a 'true' hermit? Opinions seem to be split on this. Some people feel he is not a true hermit because he obtained what was necessary to live by stealing from others. Many of the owners of the cabins he had stolen from expressed that they had lived in fear all of those years Chris Knight had been breaking into their cabins I could really relate to their feelings because several years ago, my own home was broken into in the middle of the night.

It took many months for me to feel safe enough to sleep through the night. Of course, there were others who felt that Chris Knight HAD been a hermit and should have been permitted to continue his life as he wished. I believe the author leaned in that direction as well. Finkel provided examples of hermits throughout the history of the world, all of whom had had community support and contact with people to obtain necessities when it had been required.

He discussed early Christian hermits who had lived in caves but who still held communal gatherings; he also discussed extreme Buddhist monks who had food delivered to them. How had Chris Knight's lifestyle been different from these earlier hermits? I don't believe anyone has the answer to that question.. Some psychologists speculated to the author that perhaps Chris Knight had schizoid personality disorder and some proposed that perhaps he is on the autism spectrum I personally found Chris Knight to be an extremely sympathetic person.

I would not want to spend years away from society but I have found that as I get older, I don't mind solitude and quiet. In fact, I very much enjoy it for small periods of time. Chris Knight's personal story was captivating but I found myself thinking about this book in broader terms.. Perhaps Chris Knight's choice to live outside of society was so fascinating was because he was engaging in the opposite of what people are socialized to do from birth. We are taught from birth how to be sociable..

We are taught that being part of society is good for society, There are many slogans which seem to celebrate and promote people's individuality.. All of our socialization seems to discourage solitude. Certainly there are societal benefits to encourage social cohesion But people hear Chris Knight's story and they are intrigued Viewing Chris Knight's years of solitude on a more personal level, I believe I can actually find a bit of wisdom.

In these days , despite our ability to connect with people around the world through the advances in technology, people continue to describe themselves as lonely and many self-medicate with prescription drugs for depression and anxiety. I believe that the mind numbing manic chatter sometimes increases those feelings.

Perhaps Chris Knight has provided some very simple knowledge we can utilize. I don't need to escape from society for decades but maybe every now and then, I can disconnect from the world and simply sit and listen View all 31 comments. He made camp at a hidden spot near a place called North Pond and survived by repeatedly burglarising the surrounding cabins, most of which were uninhabited for much of the year.

This book was great! It makes for a well-rounded, considered overview. And while Knight opened up to Finkel a fair bit, some aspects to his story remain unsatisfying from a narrative viewpoint, particularly regarding his motivation. Dec 21, Char rated it really liked it Shelves: This book has me conflicted!

I listened to it, narrated by Mark Bramhall, and he was excellent. What follows are my thoughts on this book while trying to avoid spoilers, even though the synopsis tells a lot already.

Books Set In South Africa - Tale Away - Books for Readers Who Travel

Perhaps my feelings will become more clear as I write. What I found most fascinating was this: I'm talking phone calls, internet, or hugs. As the author points out in this 3. As the author points out in this book-most of us have gone only a matter of hours. Imagine going for 27 years. Is a person who has a need for quiet and silence sick? Do they have Asperger's? The author asks all of these questions-of doctors and regular people alike. I couldn't help but wonder why everyone thought something was wrong with Christopher Knight.

Is it so wrong to want to avoid people, noise, news, television, and electronics? I guess 27 years with no contact does seem strange, but sick? I'm not sure about that. A number of philosophical views were also offered as well as quotes from many different books about hermits and recluses throughout history. Views on solitary confinement are also discussed, with most agreeing that solitary is a type of torture.

Here's what bothers me most: I'm not sure I'm comfortable with what the author did to get the information for this book. While I did find this story fascinating, the hermit himself asked Mr. Finkel to leave him alone on a number of different occasions, yet he persisted-not only visiting him in jail, but also visiting him in Maine once he was released. Christopher Knight was incarcerated for a time, due to his repeated thefts of food, books and other items. I'm not sure if I view this as honorable or as harassment. I can't deny, however, that I did keep listening.

I loved the parts that were direct quotes from Mr. Did all of these things make sense to me? No, but they sure did cause me to rethink my views on the world and all of its noise and distractions. No animals, no planes, no birds, no chatter, nothing at all. It's hard to imagine that.

Well, I wrote all this and I'm still conflicted. I guess I am glad that the author pursued Mr. Knight because I did find this tome to be fascinating at times. It's just that I feel Knight's wishes were disrespected and I hate the thought of that; and I hate that I took part in it by listening to this book. Which probably makes no sense at all, but there you have it. View all 23 comments. Apr 19, Brandice rated it really liked it. This story is Fascinating! Christopher Knight took hermitting to the extreme. The Stranger in the Woods shares his story.

He never lit a fire, even in extreme brutal winter conditions, as the smoke could have attracted unwanted visitors. He had little desire to seek happiness in the modern world so, he just walked away. Knight was not residing far away from his parents home where he grew up. To not inquire about the what, where, how and why of a missing 20 year old son raises a red flag, to me. Not all families are the same of course, but this is one aspect of the story I found truly baffling - The lack of pursuing the result, to find out either way.

As I read the book, I felt Finkel, the author, became increasingly aggressive or at least too persistent in his pursuit of Knight. Why is he going to Maine again when Knight told him he wants to be left alone? Sure, this may be a journalism tactic but when done well, not always so obvious. Other than that single syllable, he insists, he had not spoken with or touched another human being, until this evening, for twenty-seven years.

After no identifiable antecedent, Christopher Knight walked into the woods of Maine at the age of twenty years old and never looked back. In an effort to support his lifestyle, he burglarized unoccupied vacation cabins for food and supplies, racking up over 1, incidents of burglaries and becoming a well-known and well-feared ghost of the area of Pond Lake.

Michael Finkel built enough rapport with Knight to complete interviews with him which resulted in a GQ article and then this book. In The Stranger in the Woods: Finkel discusses Knight's upbringing, his exit from civilization, his lifestyle of "aloneness", the town's response to having a hermit in their backyard, the true crime element, and my personal favorite: I enjoyed learning about this subject through the perspective and detailed research of a quality journalist.

Never once does Mr. Finkel justify Knight's criminal behaviors or advocate for them to be overlooked or rationalized. Both Christopher Knight and Mr. Finkel hold Knight responsible for his actions, as does the judicial system, so don't let an assumption to the opposite dissuade you from reading this book. New York Post My favorite quote: Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is.

View all 6 comments. Oct 29, Ron rated it really liked it Shelves: The extreme examples in life interest me. Those who climb mountains, strike their own path, live through tragedy, walk into the wilderness alone. This true story about Christopher Knight is like that last example. If he had not broken into their cabins for necessities to live, they would not have guessed another lived just a The extreme examples in life interest me.

When finally caught, he freely admitted to stealing, never sought to absolve himself, and hated the fact that he had done so for so long. Some of the cabin owners held onto their anger, but most forgave immediately. They would give more. For 27 years Chris had lived outside of our world. At twenty years old, he walked away. He was a man who felt out of place. That sounds strange to most. But he is actually a highly intelligent person. People want to fit a round peg in a round hole, yet we are not all the same shape.

I was particularly touched by his description of the close connection of these so called primitive peoples with their environment and their felt sense of what was happening around them, both in their surrounding environment and in their contacts with others. I have spent years working to free myself from the bondage of intellect in favour of a deeper felt sense of my life experience and it is a hard road.

The constant reassertion of the sense of separate self is frequently troublesome. It says something about our culture that we are so alienated from who we are as human beings that the constant ebb and flow, the current of life for these people seems somehow strange to us. The value of what we hold dear in our livescan be seen clearly in this book by comparison between the life of those in the forest and those touched by our so called civilization. The absolutely destructive and evil agency of Christian missionaries glares out from these pages just confirming me in the anathema with which I hold these people and all their doings.

The closely intertwined lives of the jungle dwellers with their environment and its spirits and the framework of existence that imposes makes much more sense in every way than the patronizing gobble dee gook that Christians spout as a faith that must be followed on pain of eternal damnation.

I despair that the places where a person can have experiences like that outlined in so captivating a manner in this book are now almost non existent. The plastic west, bags, bottles and Jesus are everywhere! Aug 02, Kay rated it really liked it Shelves: Hansen's tale of his trek through Borneo is absorbing, especially as he comes to grips with his own inadequacies along the journey.

Relying one might almost say at the mercy of native guides, he's initially almost unable to cope. His gradual adjustment to the jungle is what makes this account so compelling. Although this is nowhere nearly as dark a travelogue as O'Hanlon's, I'm happy to say. Hansen Hansen's tale of his trek through Borneo is absorbing, especially as he comes to grips with his own inadequacies along the journey. Hansen learns from his guides as he progresses, and his admiration for their jungle skills is obvious.

His gradual mastery of a complex bartering system and a wealth of survival lore make for fascinating reading. Sadly, I'm sure that Borneo has changed for the worse since Hansen's day, and that the modern world has encroached considerably on both native cultures and the environment. When Hansen returns to "civilization" he finds himself loathe to resume his life as he'd led it before, and the reader understands why he turns around and goes back into the jungle.

Hansen is a skilled narrator, and this is wonderful armchair traveling. Dec 29, Cherie rated it really liked it. Until I read it, I might have thought it a correct shelf designation. Now, my shelf designation might be: It sounds crazy, but I had nothing else to compare it against. Eric's amazing story of what he went through during a day's walk on the trails in the wilds of Borneo in the mid s is an eye opening account of one man's endurance, hardship, and suffering, along with beauty, discovery, friendship, and accountability.

I will never forget it. Oct 21, Logan rated it it was amazing. I've been through this one like 4 times. Once you're in, it's impossible to stop. Aug 30, Tim Martin rated it really liked it Shelves: This extraordinary book chronicles Hansen's remarkable journey across the island of Borneo in The author traveled some 2, miles on the island, largely on foot and through tropical rain forest on an island that straddles the equator; actually he made two trips, traveling four months and 1, miles before turning around and going back across the island, a mere 50 miles from the ocean to the astonishment of his traveling companions and shouts of "Crazy man!

Writing of his childhood imaginations about exotic and faraway jungles and his own later adult fantasies after spending hours in the library reading about the island, Hansen found he had a lot to learn about the realities of Borneo. Emboldened by an earlier visit to the island in , his first attempts to penetrate the interior and reach the highlands and meet real forest nomads - the "jungle of my library fantasies" - met with continual frustration.

For over eight weeks he went up one river after another, sometimes getting as much as 70 miles before being stymied by dishonest guides, insufficient amounts of gasoline for the outboard motors, or unfriendly villages, which would often price gouge Hansen, charging exorbitant rates for simple services and fail to provide him the necessary guides to proceed further on foot. The trade goods he bought generally did not interest the locals, Hansen found it hard to interact in the non-monetary economy of the interior, and even his Western manners were a source of problems it took the author a while to realize direct questions were quite rude in many situations and would not likely produce the answers or results he sought.

Retreating to the coast, Hansen reevaluated his trip and had the very good fortune of becoming friends with Syed Muhammad Aidid, a man in Marudi, Malaysia. This businessman, familiar with both the ways of both the West and the jungle interior, took Hansen under his wing, teaching him the complex economic system of the highlands and jungle. The author learned that an empty, 8-ounce tin of sweetened condensed milk was the standard unit of measure and was called a mok, with all other volumes being calculated in multiples of 1 mok for example, 3 moks of dry rice equal one day's rice for a man.

He learned of valuable, light-weight items to bring to trade for food and services, items like sugee Lombek chewing tobacco , manik-manik colored seed beads used for decoration , and in particular shotgun shells 1 shell equal to one day's labor for a man or if caught - as they were illegal - 1 year in jail. He also learned of valuable items he could procure in villages for trade later, such as gaharu, a local wood with concentrations of aromatic sap, favored in Asian medicine and in the Middle East for making incense and perfume.

With Muhammad Aidid's help, Hansen was soon on his way back into the interior, paying his guides with wages made up of shotgun shells, manik-manik, and sugee. He managed to secure guides for his particularly successful first half of his trip with two Penan men, John Bong and Tingang Na; being his first guides, they were vital in his become proficient on the island. Communicating in bahasa pasar, a basic form of modern Malay that is the trade language of Sarawak the Malaysian side of the island and Kalimantan the Indonesia side - and later on in Indonesian with other guides - Hansen spent four weeks with these two guides before reading the Kelabit highlands where he spent two weeks.

The journey through the rain forest was portrayed in vivid prose and was extremely well-written. Hansen learned of many locally useful plants, such as akar korek the "matches vine;" once lit, the dried vine smokes for days and is excellent for transporting fire , akar sukilang a vine that can be beaten to a pulp and spread in water to stupefy fish, making them easy to catch , and most of all the sago palm from which the Penan get their staple food, sago flour, which he was able to witness being made. He encountered many animals also; flying snakes and lizards, fire ants with which he had an unfortunate encounter , flying foxes which taste terrible , wild pigs which taste excellent and are an important food source , gibbons, black hornbills which come when called , and barking deer among others.

The star though of the book were the people of Borneo, both the settled tribal groups of where there eleven, which included groups such as the Kelabit, Iban, and Kenyah , and the shy forest nomads, the Penan, true experts of the forest but uncomfortable in direct sunlight and in large communities.

He had many excellent encounters with these people, as a number of them were friendly and generous, allowing him to participate in Gawai Antu, an Iban tribute to departed spirits, a time of much merry-making and drinking of large quantities of arak a type of rough distilled spirit ; learn about the peselai the "long journey," undertaken by young men to seek status and gain coveted goods from the coast, a journey taking months or even years ; watch blowpipes being made, and much more. He also had bad experiences; in addition to some gouging in some villages, during his second journey, when traveled alone for a time, he was feared by some villages of being a bali saleng, an evil and nearly invulnerable spirit that walked alone at night, seeking to get blood for magical ceremonies.

May 09, Bill rated it it was amazing Shelves: Very quick read full of interesting adventures. I would've loved color photo plates and some sections to be expanded but Hansen's attention to detail, sense of humor, and emphasis on human connections made this a memorable story. My favorite section was about how every year a blood-stealing demon appears in a slightly different form.

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Due to Hansen's bad luck, that particular year the local gossip is that the demon takes the form of a white man traveling alone in the forest. He effectively capture Very quick read full of interesting adventures. He effectively captures the surreal and frightening experience of villagers thinking he is a dangerous monster. On a lighter note, I also liked the story of the man carrying a heavy sewing machine on his back home to his wife he hasn't seen for years.

I'm going to be visiting Sabah in Borneo soon and I expect it to be equally beautiful but also heartbreaking as the beginnings of deforestation trends that this book witnesses have only accelerated since then, with palm oil plantation replacing logging as the main cause of destruction. May 09, Sonatajessica rated it liked it Shelves: I looove traveling, so naturally I love reading about it, too. The main difference between me and Eric Hansen is not so much that he has managed to go to more exotic locations and write books about it though that is one of the differences , the main point where we go on diverging paths is what we consider a n adventure.

See, when I was in New Zealand I decided while backpacking around that I wouldn't book a place for the night of New Year's Eve and spend it on the beach to watch the sunrise inst I looove traveling, so naturally I love reading about it, too. See, when I was in New Zealand I decided while backpacking around that I wouldn't book a place for the night of New Year's Eve and spend it on the beach to watch the sunrise instead. I thought this was a darn adventurous plan. When it started to rain in the afternoon I realized my plan was awful, I was all alone and close to despair.

See, I panic over rain. Hansen spends months in the jungle with leeches crawling over him, wounds at his feet getting infected, tribes consider him an evil spirit and ponder on spearing him, he gets lost in high grass, so far so forth, and in the end he calls it a wonderful experience. I got through my rainy, lonely new year feeling kind of proud over my 'adventure', yep, I am not quite up the league Hansen is in. Therefor I prefer reading about the more extreme journeys while in real life I journey on smaller scaled adventures. Thanks for writing such books, Mr. Jul 31, Cat Chiappa rated it it was amazing.

This was a fabulous book and one of the best travel memoirs I've ever read, and I have certainly read my share. I appreciated the author's willingness to actually learn about all of the other cultures and he never mocked them for their beliefs. He had such an amazing adventure and it makes me sad to think of what the logging industry has done to Borneo. The only two criticisms I had about the book was how dense it was I found this book a little hard to p This was a fabulous book and one of the best travel memoirs I've ever read, and I have certainly read my share.

I found this book a little hard to pick up once I had put it down but whenever I read it I really enjoyed myself. The other thing I wish it had was an updated forward. It was written so long ago and I was really curious to hear what the author is up to now and what his take is on Borneo at this time. Did he ever go back? Does he have recommendations for people who want to experience Borneo?

Overall, this was an entertaining and deeply interesting anthropological delight. Mar 31, Jibralta rated it it was amazing. One of the best books I've ever read. The author treks across Borneo with two indigenous guides in , before the rainforest was destroyed by Chinese palm oil plantations. The book is so well-written you actually feel like you're on this journey. After a few weeks, due to the soft light of the rainforest, he begins to see colors he's never seen before. H One of the best books I've ever read. A truly frightening experience. Mar 23, Marty rated it really liked it.

I like books that can insert into the readers mind a way of thinking that is utterly foreign. The forest dwellers, viewed by westerners, are so utterly clueless, yet, this traveler sets ripples in motion in the forest that announce his presence to all the inhabitants. Their measure of 'distance' from one location to another, is actually measured in days. Beyond a few hundred yards, our notion of distance is unfathomable to them.

There are no straight lines or predictable rates of travel in thei I like books that can insert into the readers mind a way of thinking that is utterly foreign. There are no straight lines or predictable rates of travel in their forest. I wish I had the guts to have made such a trip-- I wouldn't be tempted now-- dont like the leaches and mosquitoes and snakes.

Apr 28, Tami rated it really liked it Shelves: I started this book and then I lost it in my house. I ordered another copy through Abebooks. I started again, but then became distracted by many more books. Suddenly I found my original copy wrapped up in some printer manuals. I decided to finish this book as soon as I finished the book that I was currently reading. Nov 06, Mel rated it it was amazing. It is on for re-read. Sep 27, Lela rated it it was amazing.

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Fantastic, interesting, enlightening, inspiring foot journey across Borneo!