Just started Reading “Snow Falling On Cedars” by David Guterson. I saw the movie adaptation some years ago, and quite enjoyed it. At the time, i wasn’t aware that it was based upon a book; feeling that the book is almost always better than the movie, i’m really looking forward to this read!
Propr to this, i re-read Farley Mowat’s “The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float”; only my second read of this great tale, the first being many years ago, before i was much into sailing at all. Also, many years before i had a proper appreciation for the sorts of serious rum consumption that Mowat describes therein…
I’ve also, after much pressure from friends and family, finally gotten around to reading “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. It was good, but… After taking in many Alan Watt books, as well as the whole of the Dhammapadha, it was a bit of an anti-climax. Still a very good story, but for me at least, less illuminating that many other readers have found it.
Of course, i’m still regularly re-reading Bob Griffith’s “Blue Water” and Adlard Coles’ “Heavy Weather Sailing”, but it’s nice to get away from my usual diet of technical treatises and sailing manuals.
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Finished this one up awhile ago, but thought it deserved further mention. The book is Herman Wouk’s “Don’t Stop The Carnival“. Set on the ficticious Caribbean island of Amerigo, but closely modelled on the St. Thomas of the early 60’s, this book hilariously deals with the somtimes manic life of the Virgin Islands. Even dated, the book abounds with details that still ring true today, and ought to be required reading for anyone looking at any sort of serious involvement with the VI. i’m now fairly certain that everyone i know here has read it at least once. Jimmy Buffet even adapted it and made it into a musical. Go figger.
Out west, there’s “Chilcotin Time”. Closer to home, “Cariboo Time”. ‘Course, down here, it’s “Island Time”. In the case of the former two, it’s an example of delayed action, a pause before the effort. Down here, it’s a case of some things never happening at all. i’m beginning to see that the latter has some justification, after living here for awhile.
There’s a passage from Herman Wouk’s “Don’t Stop The Carnival” that pretty much sums it up:
The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existance is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for awhile then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun.
Since i’ve been here, i’ve remained focussed, “eyes on the prize”, but i’ve also slowed down. The speed of life here is slow, yet inexorable, and there’s really nothing to be gained by trying to outpace it. Still, the “climate of eternal summer” is starting to get to me (and not just the heat!); my life up to now has been largely governed by the seasons. i marked my past and future by the passings of summers and winters. Now, my Canadian physiology is expecting a change of season, and naturally, after summer comes winter! Not so here… There is no milestone of climate, no abrupt passing of seasons. Lately, the most obvious difference is that most of the resident pelicans have been replaced by striking black-headed gulls, the splashing dives of the former replaced by the raucous Hollywood “jungle-monkey” calls of the latter.
Not that i’m eager for snow again, not quite yet…
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