Comments on "On a Shoestring to Coorg" - An Experience of Southern India and "Wheels Within Wheels" by Dervla Murphy
"On a Shoestring to Coorg" - An Experience of Southern India is Dervla Murphy's 5th book, and it was published in 1976. The author is traveling, for the first time outside of Europe in 5 years, she says; and she is traveling with her daughter Rachel. Their trip lasted from November of 1973 to March of 1974.
Dervla Murphy's many detailed and vivid descriptions of everything about this journey in southern India, including many histories, are far too numerous to try to relate.
It appears that the author had her 42nd birthday at the beginning of this trip, in November. Very soon Rachel, too, had her birthday, in December. Rachel became 5 years old! Throughout their journey Rachel demonstrated that, like her mother, she was born to be very strong, mentally, as well as physically.
"Wheels Within Wheels" was published in 1979 and was Dervla Murphy's 8th book. The book is the story of the author's life from the beginning right up to the death of her father at 60 years of age in February of 1961, soon followed by the death of her mother, probably at 55 years of age, in August of 1962; and then comes the publication of her first book, "Full Tilt - Ireland to India With a Bicycle", in 1964.
"Wheels Within Wheels" is filled with unexpected events and narratives of all kinds. The result could hardly be more thought provoking.
At about 47 years of age Dervla Murphy was not yet half way through her life of extra arduous travel and travel writing.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Experimental Blog # 200
Comments on "Through the Embers of Chaos - Balkan Journeys" and "The Island That Dared - Journeys in Cuba" by Dervla Murphy
"Through the Embers of Chaos - Balkan Journeys"
The first few pages of this book describe a trip the author took to Croatia in 1991. At that time Yugoslavia had not yet disintegrated.
Part II of the book is about 50 pages, and it describes the author's visit to Serbia in 1999, about 8 years later.
Part III is about 280 pages, and it describes the author's journeys around Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo in 2000. During this time Dervla Murphy was 68 years old, and she traveled by bicycle! She often pedaled over 50 miles in one day, and went up and down who knows how many thousands of feet; and, it seems, on trails and roads that no one else would ride on.
Dervla Murphy's physical and mental stamina are extraordinary, and she seems completely fearless. She was attacked and thrown to the ground twice, but she continued to take risks that, probably, no one else would take. She did not carry a weapon, a gun, although she could pretend that she had one.
"The Island That Dared - Journeys in Cuba"
For about the first 100 pages of this book, in 2005, the 73 to 74 year old Dervla Murphy is traveling in Cuba with her daughter and her three granddaughters, aged 6, 8, and 10. She is not averse to requiring unusual physical and mental effort from them, but they don't seem to mind; and they apparently accept these things as "normal".
For the rest of this book, in 2006 and 2007, Dervla Murphy is "trekking" by herself, not riding a bicycle as she did on so many other of her journeys.
In the "Island That Dared" Dervla Murphy reveals her very "left-wing" sympathies probably more than in most of her previous travel books. However, people do not have to share the author's politics to be captivated by this book. She is very highly informative about many matters, including: Fidel Castro and Che' Guevera. Ultimately, however, Dervla Murphy is not always very clear, about Cuban "participatory democracy", for instance; or completely persuasive in her arguments.
"Through the Embers of Chaos - Balkan Journeys"
The first few pages of this book describe a trip the author took to Croatia in 1991. At that time Yugoslavia had not yet disintegrated.
Part II of the book is about 50 pages, and it describes the author's visit to Serbia in 1999, about 8 years later.
Part III is about 280 pages, and it describes the author's journeys around Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo in 2000. During this time Dervla Murphy was 68 years old, and she traveled by bicycle! She often pedaled over 50 miles in one day, and went up and down who knows how many thousands of feet; and, it seems, on trails and roads that no one else would ride on.
Dervla Murphy's physical and mental stamina are extraordinary, and she seems completely fearless. She was attacked and thrown to the ground twice, but she continued to take risks that, probably, no one else would take. She did not carry a weapon, a gun, although she could pretend that she had one.
"The Island That Dared - Journeys in Cuba"
For about the first 100 pages of this book, in 2005, the 73 to 74 year old Dervla Murphy is traveling in Cuba with her daughter and her three granddaughters, aged 6, 8, and 10. She is not averse to requiring unusual physical and mental effort from them, but they don't seem to mind; and they apparently accept these things as "normal".
For the rest of this book, in 2006 and 2007, Dervla Murphy is "trekking" by herself, not riding a bicycle as she did on so many other of her journeys.
In the "Island That Dared" Dervla Murphy reveals her very "left-wing" sympathies probably more than in most of her previous travel books. However, people do not have to share the author's politics to be captivated by this book. She is very highly informative about many matters, including: Fidel Castro and Che' Guevera. Ultimately, however, Dervla Murphy is not always very clear, about Cuban "participatory democracy", for instance; or completely persuasive in her arguments.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Experimental Blog # 199
Comments on "Full Tilt - Ireland to India With a Bicycle" and "In Ethiopia With a Mule" by Dervla Murphy
These 2 books are the first and fourth books written by Dervla Murphy. They were published in 1965 and 1968 and are about trips that she took in 1963 and 1966-67 when she was 31 and 35 years of age.
The continuous abundance of so much detail and so many superlatives that the author uses in both books to describe her surroundings and the events of her travels, day after day; and the complete absence of photographs, even though the author took pictures with her camera, probably cause some readers to assume that her writing should not be considered to be 100% reliable. However, her writing certainly is captivating and informative. Both of these books receive very high reviews, even 40 years after they were written.
Dervla Murphy obviously has amazing strength and endurance for physical and mental pain and exhaustion, and challenges and dangers of all kinds. She also has remarkable ability to communicate and establish relationships with all kinds of people who are completely alien to her, even when they do not understand each others' languages. She also knows how to manage all kinds of animals, both friendly and domestic, as well as, dangerous and wild.
These 2 books are the first and fourth books written by Dervla Murphy. They were published in 1965 and 1968 and are about trips that she took in 1963 and 1966-67 when she was 31 and 35 years of age.
The continuous abundance of so much detail and so many superlatives that the author uses in both books to describe her surroundings and the events of her travels, day after day; and the complete absence of photographs, even though the author took pictures with her camera, probably cause some readers to assume that her writing should not be considered to be 100% reliable. However, her writing certainly is captivating and informative. Both of these books receive very high reviews, even 40 years after they were written.
Dervla Murphy obviously has amazing strength and endurance for physical and mental pain and exhaustion, and challenges and dangers of all kinds. She also has remarkable ability to communicate and establish relationships with all kinds of people who are completely alien to her, even when they do not understand each others' languages. She also knows how to manage all kinds of animals, both friendly and domestic, as well as, dangerous and wild.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Experimental Blog # 198
Quotations and comments on "Silverland - A Winter Journey beyond the Urals" by Dervla Murphy
Here is one quotation from a very interesting summary, of about 4 pages, of the history of Belarus:
"A year later{1922} eastern Belarus became a Soviet Socialist Republic < > During the 1930s collectivized farms, artificial famines, heavy industries and Stalinist purges arrived; no one knows how many mass slaughterings took place. In the Kurapaty Forest, near Minsk, the bodies of more than 100,000 men and women were exhumed in 1988."
Joseph Stalin is mentioned on at least 17 pages in this book; and Vladimir Putin is written about on at least 27 pages.
The author clearly does not like the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and she mentions it on at least 10 pages.
"What Soviet citizens did enjoy was freedom from worry about jobs, housing. heating, education, health care, pensions. Although the implacable pursuit and punishment of dissidents continued after 1956, the mass of the population could then lead a notably less stressful life than their forefathers.."
"Thus the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury begat an unrestrained oligarchy eager to stamp on those seedlings of democracy - visible in corners of the Kremlin - which the West claimed to be nurturing."
Even more convincing, the author quotes the World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, "For the majority of those living in the former Soviet Union, economic life under capitalism has been even worse than the old Communists had said it would be ...By siding so firmly so long with those at the helm when huge inequality was created through the corrupt privatization process, the USA, IMF and the international community have indelibly associated themselves with policies that, at best, promoted the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the average Russian.""
"In 2005 a reviewer < > diagnosed me as 'a typical old Irish Leftie [who] cannot disguise her sneaking regard for the Soviet Union'. Not quite a bull's-eye but Mr Thompson didn't quite miss the target."
"Stalin therefore expended human lives, instead of capital, on his gigantic development projects. At its zenith the gulag system, begun in 1930, controlled twenty-one million prisoners and was administered by 800,000 officials. < > During the Great Terror{1937-38} more than a million were executed and seven or eight million sent to camps. < > In contrast, between 1876 and 1904 the czar's regime imposed the death penalty on 486 criminals and terrorists, an annual average of seventeen."
Dervla Murphy is ideological about the world in the extreme, but she has virtually amazing physical and mental strength. She has traveled, very often by bicycle, all over the world; and she made this journey at about 71 years of age! And, besides that, during the winter!
It seems a little bit surprising, however, that in spite of her apparently life-long interest in virtually everything left-wing, including the Soviet Union, that she has never bothered to study Russian. However, because of her age, she was born in 1931, she might be entitled to an allowance.
Here is one quotation from a very interesting summary, of about 4 pages, of the history of Belarus:
"A year later{1922} eastern Belarus became a Soviet Socialist Republic < > During the 1930s collectivized farms, artificial famines, heavy industries and Stalinist purges arrived; no one knows how many mass slaughterings took place. In the Kurapaty Forest, near Minsk, the bodies of more than 100,000 men and women were exhumed in 1988."
Joseph Stalin is mentioned on at least 17 pages in this book; and Vladimir Putin is written about on at least 27 pages.
The author clearly does not like the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and she mentions it on at least 10 pages.
"What Soviet citizens did enjoy was freedom from worry about jobs, housing. heating, education, health care, pensions. Although the implacable pursuit and punishment of dissidents continued after 1956, the mass of the population could then lead a notably less stressful life than their forefathers.."
"Thus the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury begat an unrestrained oligarchy eager to stamp on those seedlings of democracy - visible in corners of the Kremlin - which the West claimed to be nurturing."
Even more convincing, the author quotes the World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, "For the majority of those living in the former Soviet Union, economic life under capitalism has been even worse than the old Communists had said it would be ...By siding so firmly so long with those at the helm when huge inequality was created through the corrupt privatization process, the USA, IMF and the international community have indelibly associated themselves with policies that, at best, promoted the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the average Russian.""
"In 2005 a reviewer < > diagnosed me as 'a typical old Irish Leftie [who] cannot disguise her sneaking regard for the Soviet Union'. Not quite a bull's-eye but Mr Thompson didn't quite miss the target."
"Stalin therefore expended human lives, instead of capital, on his gigantic development projects. At its zenith the gulag system, begun in 1930, controlled twenty-one million prisoners and was administered by 800,000 officials. < > During the Great Terror{1937-38} more than a million were executed and seven or eight million sent to camps. < > In contrast, between 1876 and 1904 the czar's regime imposed the death penalty on 486 criminals and terrorists, an annual average of seventeen."
Dervla Murphy is ideological about the world in the extreme, but she has virtually amazing physical and mental strength. She has traveled, very often by bicycle, all over the world; and she made this journey at about 71 years of age! And, besides that, during the winter!
It seems a little bit surprising, however, that in spite of her apparently life-long interest in virtually everything left-wing, including the Soviet Union, that she has never bothered to study Russian. However, because of her age, she was born in 1931, she might be entitled to an allowance.
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