Tracks

Five stars for the writing. Especially her descriptions of the effects a vast desert can have on a person traversing it slowly, and her criticism of the abuse and racism towards the indigenous population.

There is a big downside to this book though: the treatment of animals. It actually makes it hard to read sometimes. You keep wondering how she's able to, since she obviously cherishes them a lot. Some examples as a warning:

"He brought out all those instruments of torture. A cattle prod throws a huge number of volts, and this I pressed into [the camel]'s snapping lips while I beat him as hard as I could across the back of the head with the hobble chain."

"I had him tied to the tree by the legs now and I only hoped that all of it would hold. I then proceeded to bash that creature over the back of the neck with the wood, until it snapped, and then with the iron bar."

"[the camel]'s eyes had rolled with fear and I had to talk to him and pacify him until I knew he trusted me and wouldn't kick. [...] I found a tree a little further on, and beat the living daylights out of him."

Tracks has been sitting on my TBR mountain
for over a year; I finally decided to start
it yesterday when a book, From Alice to
Ocean: Alone Across the Outback, arrived
from the library. From Alice is composed
of pictures taken by National Geographic
photographer Rick Smolan accompanied by
exerpts from Davidson's book. The pictures
were awesome, but reading Tracks and trying
to keep my place in From Alice was difficult;
the writer and the photographer, though
together for most of the trip, seemed to be
miles apart in recording aspects of the trip
that were intriguing. My favorite part of
Tracks was the leg of the trip in which
Davidson traveled with Aborigine elder Eddie.
Davidson appeared to change dramatically
during the time she spent with Eddie,
becoming a more substantive person.
Overall, I would say that I found Glamour's
assessment of the book (“the women's Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”)
exaggerated, but the book, for me,
provided a fascinating (and safe) look at
a perilous part of the world.

The best thing I loved about this memoir and travelogue is how raw it is. It is not glossed over, it isn't built up to be more than it was intended to be. Robyn's candid recounting of her journey tells it like it is, with all the messy, strange and crazy details along the way. She doubted at times, she both lost and found herself in unexpected ways and she doesn't expect others to either understand or follow in her footsteps. There are nuggets of wisdom and advice littered throughout anyway, whether she intended it or not and if you let it, her story can be more than a feminist tale or a moral lesson, it can imbue the way you look at your life and ways in which you interact with those around you, among so many other little and big things. I don't think even Robyn wants others to pack up and cross a desert literally, but her story does have a way of inspiring you to move, to break free and think beyond the confines of the small world you find yourself and to see the wide world through different eyes and to know it won't be easy or safe when you do.