Tracks : one woman's journey across 1,700 miles of Australian outback / Robyn Davidson.
Publisher: London : Bloomsbury , 2012Description: 261 p. : col. ill. ; 20 cm001: 25648ISBN: 9781408834862Subject(s): Novels | Tree housesDDC classification: 823Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Book | MAIN LIBRARY FICTION | FICTION (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Checked out | 11/06/2024 | 110408 |
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FICTION Dark fire / | FICTION Dissolution / | FICTION Revelation / | FICTION Tracks : one woman's journey across 1,700 miles of Australian outback / | FICTION The secret history / | FICTION Durable beauty : stories / | FICTION The wasp factory |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Now a major motion picture starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver 'I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.' So begins Robyn Davidson's perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company.Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.WITH A NEW POSTSCRIPT BY THE AUTHOR AND A STUNNING COLOUR PICTURE SECTION
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Kirkus Book Review
Robyn Davidson (young, female, coast-bred) turns up in Alice Springs, two-bit hub of the Australian outback, with a dog, six dollars, the wrong clothes, and ""a maniac idea""--to get hold of three wild camels, train them, and cross the western desert. A compulsion to test herself, really. And be with the Aborigines. Racist, misogynist, tourist-fleecing Alice Springs sees her as a threat. Robyn, working in a pub, living in ""a draughty cement pigeon-hole"" in back, is warned by ""one of the kinder regulars"" that she's been nominated ""as the town's next rape case."" Dour camel-trainer Kurt, with whom she thinks she's struck a bargain--eight months labor for three beasts--keeps her in feudal bondage, steps up the pressure with ""countless little cruelties,"" never intends to make good. When two camels do come her way through an act of charity, one gets blood poisoning--from ""a simple cut""--and Robyn has to shoot her. ""All that time and all that money and all that energy, devotion and care, for nothing."" But she learns, meanwhile, how to handle the camels (much more difficult--given their intelligence!--than you might imagine) and how to handle Alice Springs--with like ""meanness"" (the outpost mentality, easily acquired). Then, the camels finally in hand, finally trained and outfitted, she needs money for supplies; and for four thousand dollars from the National Geographic, ""I. . . sold a great swatch of my independence and most of the trip's integrity."" In a sense, of course, this book is an attempt, through candor, to make amends. Still, its second half runs largely on the tensions generated by the sellout (not, however, without some help from the camels, the scenery, the mishaps, and Robyn's writerly capacity to talk--believably--to herself). She acquires the intermittent, encroaching company of world-class photographer Rick Smolan; they quarrel, make up, quarrel, have sex, become more tolerant of one another, become better persons. . . and, as a twosome, become (inescapably, perhaps) a bore. More important, Rick's picture-taking antagonizes the Aborigines, and costs Robyn their confidence, while her own ""camel lady"" celebrity brings them other unwanted, demeaning attention. But Robyn is there to see it--and her observations have a keenness that any sincere attempt to ""enter into their reality"" would inevitably lack. The condition of the Aborigines, many met as individuals, is the book's strong, unsentimental subtext. An unusual work--not as travel or adventure but for the total, personal experience, met head on. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.