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商品の説明
内容説明
A buoyant, bittersweet and often plaintively gorgeous travel memoir by Raney, writer and founder of the famous Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. Raney's debut book follows the arc of a year-long expedition around the world, launched in 1967, at the height of "the summer of love in a summer of death". In San Francisco, where the author lived with his wife JoAnne, hippies and beatniks flooded the streets, and new reports arrived every day from the bloody conflict in Vietnam. The couple decided to decamp for Europe, where the dollar was strong and the possibilities seemed endless. Along for the ride is Tarzan, a fiery dachshund, and a baby boy named Eric Xerxes Raney, known as Zerky. For a while, this quirky little family made its way across the Continent, camping in open fields, cavorting on beaches and scrambling through the Swiss Alps. The narrative is built on letters Raney wrote to Zerky who would presumably be too young to remember the breadth of these adventures -- and diary entries by JoAnne, a fastidious chronicler of the far-flung. "That there might be a world beyond Europe, a world you could drive to, was something that never occurred to us until six months later", the author remembers, near the beginning of the book. Soon enough, the Raneys caterwauled through Turkey, Pakistan, India and lran -- a journey that would prove difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate in these pitched political times. In Kabul, Afghanistan, they vividly pick their "way through random passageways and alleyways that were left between buildings at the time of their construction". In Eastern Turkey, they face down a gaggle of armed and angry soldiers. The adventure quotient here is high, but the main ballast of the book is emotional. Shortly after returning from the expedition, JoAnne, pregnant with her second child, died of an aneurism, and within a year, Zerky was killed while playing near his family's home. The book remains as a testament to the power of the human spirit -- to wander, endure and remember. A chronicle of travels through a bygone world.
メディア掲載レビュー
""A masterful storyteller and beautiful description. A tale that keeps readers turning the page for more. The book will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in travel, Middle Eastern history, and simply a well-written story of adventure." --Christine Canfield, "ForeWord Magazine""
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カスタマーレビュー
Amazon.com で最も参考になったカスタマーレビュー (beta)
Amazon.com:
9件のカスタマーレビュー
4 人中、4人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Inspiring and haunting
2010/3/23
形式:ハードカバー
This isn't just a collection of thoughts. In his letters to his son, Bill writes with incredible detail, trying to explain the significance of what he's seeing to a son that won't remember all of his adventures. He writes to include him - "You were a hit, Zerky!" and educate him about global politics, but not in an overbearing way. He has the writing skills to draw us into these very personal moments. I've owned a small RV in the past and did a big cross country trip, and reading his accounts has gotten my wanderlust going again!
It's haunting for several reasons - the biggest one being that his son and his wife die only a few years after the trip, leaving Bill alone with these memories. Another is the sense of loss of opportunity. There was a short window of time where Americans were met with reactions of intrigue and welcome in many of the countries they visited. Today, not even the adorable Zerky could save them from open hostility.
It's haunting for several reasons - the biggest one being that his son and his wife die only a few years after the trip, leaving Bill alone with these memories. Another is the sense of loss of opportunity. There was a short window of time where Americans were met with reactions of intrigue and welcome in many of the countries they visited. Today, not even the adorable Zerky could save them from open hostility.
6 人中、5人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
An enticing and fun read, well worth reading for lovers of true adventure
2010/2/9
形式:ハードカバー
Wanderlust doesn't wait for peace. "Letters to Zerky: A Father's Legacy to a Lost Son... and A road Trip Around the World" is a unique memoir as a father addresses his son about a roadtrip the son took when he was a young child. Bill Raney took his son across the globe when he was only an infant, as they toured Europe and Asia. Aimed at his son, there's no exclusion as any reader will be mesmerized by this truly unique and legendary family vacation that makes Disney World look dull. "Letters to Zerky" is an enticing and fun read, well worth reading for lovers of true adventure.
2 人中、2人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Poignant Sixties Global Adventure
2011/3/25
形式:ハードカバー
Raney's forty-year old letters to and photos of his young son Eric Xerxes Raney, affectionately known as Zerky, make for a compelling armchair adventure. In 1967, Raney and wife JoAnne, Zerky and a dachsund named Tarzan, flew to Cologne, Germany, where they bought a Volkswagen bus that was their home for the next year through Spain, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Tibet. Zerky's blond head and Tarzan's doggie charms opened borders, hearts and minds for the family as they traveled during the height of America's unpopular intervention in Viet Nam.
The author doesn't get into details until the final chapter about the tragedies that befall his family later, but the reader learns from the front jacket blurb that both JoAnne and Zerky die shortly after their American homecoming, so this lends an extra poignancy to the exuberant letters that Raney wrote for his son to savor about a trip that he wouldn't remember when he grew up. Raney's letters are also accompanied by some journal snippets that JoAnne wrote along the way, and they are often an interesting, practical counterpoint to her husband's more upbeat accounts (though diarrhea features way too prominently in her entries).
I found the photos sprinkled throughout the text to be very evocative and often very funny. Zerky, named for ancient Persian Emperor Xerxes the Great, is often posed in front of world landmarks as a toddler conqueror and they are sweet, funny and well-composed shots. Confusingly, though, there are a number of other photos also bound in at the front of the book, some of which are duplicated later on in the text. The accompanying maps that are sprinkled among the chapters are also loaded with too many dots identifying areas that are not even visited in the book and simpler maps would provide more effective communication of the Raney's travel routes.
The book offers an original contribution to travel literature as a poignant and perceptive travelogue by two Americans journeying into lands where not too many Westerners find an easy welcome today.
The author doesn't get into details until the final chapter about the tragedies that befall his family later, but the reader learns from the front jacket blurb that both JoAnne and Zerky die shortly after their American homecoming, so this lends an extra poignancy to the exuberant letters that Raney wrote for his son to savor about a trip that he wouldn't remember when he grew up. Raney's letters are also accompanied by some journal snippets that JoAnne wrote along the way, and they are often an interesting, practical counterpoint to her husband's more upbeat accounts (though diarrhea features way too prominently in her entries).
I found the photos sprinkled throughout the text to be very evocative and often very funny. Zerky, named for ancient Persian Emperor Xerxes the Great, is often posed in front of world landmarks as a toddler conqueror and they are sweet, funny and well-composed shots. Confusingly, though, there are a number of other photos also bound in at the front of the book, some of which are duplicated later on in the text. The accompanying maps that are sprinkled among the chapters are also loaded with too many dots identifying areas that are not even visited in the book and simpler maps would provide more effective communication of the Raney's travel routes.
The book offers an original contribution to travel literature as a poignant and perceptive travelogue by two Americans journeying into lands where not too many Westerners find an easy welcome today.
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