Evan S. Connell explores the quixotic obsession with the new, the hidden, the unattainable that burns in an individual's soul.
Each essay is an extraordinary account of passionate pursuit by legendary explorers, visionaries, and seekers compelled by a singular desire. Here we find Marco Polo, El Dorado, Paracelsus, Columbus, the thousands of children in the Innocents' Crusade, Magellan, Mary Kingsley (a Victorian naturalist, ethnologist, sailor, scholar, and guest of cannibals, and Ibn Batuta (an indefatigable explorer of the fourteenth century whose travels in the Arab world and beyond made 'the journey of Marco Polo look like a stroll around the block').
'There's no end to the list, of course,' Connell adds, 'because gradually it descends from such legendary individuals to ourselves when, as children, obsessed by that same urge, we got permission to sleep in the backyard.'
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Quite simply, a great book... Combining the poet's vision with the narrative sweep of a born storyteller and painstaking historical research, Connell revives the lost sense of awe and wonder that, along with the misery and privation, must have marked these epic voyages of body and mind * Los Angeles Times * Connell is one of those exuberant American historians who believe so passionately that everything must be fun that the reader sometimes pines for a piece of dry gravitas. Nevertheless, these essays, on a theme of exploration, contain enough rattling yarns to silence even this cynic * Herald * A survey of great feats of exploration, a compendium of a lifetime's reading of adventure, a book of wonders, florid history, provisional 'facts' and catchy ironies, laconic heroism and scabrous villainies, cryptic deaths and other endings * New York Times Book Review *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 153 mm
Dicke: 22 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-7126-6817-0 (9780712668170)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Evan S. Connell, recognised as one of the most important voices in American literature, was the author of seventeen books, including Mrs Bridge, Mr Bridge and the bestselling Son of the Morning Star, his account of Custer's final battle at the Little Big Horn, and his book about the crusades, Deus lo Volt! In 2009 he was nominated for the Man Booker international prize. He lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico and died in 2010, aged 88.
