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Half-Safe: A Story Of Love, Obsession, And History's Most Insane Around-the-world Adventure (1991)

by James Nestor(Favorite Author)

3.18 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1871948916 (ISBN13: 9781871948912)

languge

English

genre

Paranormal Fantasy

publisher

Tynron Press

review 1: I'm a sucker for sea stories, and this is perhaps the strangest one I've ever come across. Ben Carlin somehow managed to circumnavigate the globe by land and sea in a jeep and boat hybrid. And nobody remembers that he did it.That's probably the most interesting part of this whole story--the nobody remembering part. In many ways Carlin's journey is textbook adventuring, the kind we often associate with the late Victorian era, shades of Shackleton and his ilk, but Carlin's feat took place in the 1950's--too late for the romance of those earlier endeavors and too soon for the bold new adventure of manned space flight that would so capture the world's attention in the coming decades. In a way Carlin's stab at it was a reification of Modernism's obsession with iteration. The th... moreing itself--circumnavigation--had been done, but he could still do it from another angle, a new approach. Doubtless there's something to be learned here. Perhaps something to do with the indomitable human spirit. But for whatever reason Carlin's journey never captured the hearts of the public at large. It's sad, I suppose.Though the subject matter interested me the real reason I read this book was to try out The Atavist. I'd heard good things about their long-form nonfiction articles. I definitely enjoyed the digital extras here--the maps and photos, as well as the option for author narration and embedded community notes--but I'm not sure the content has caught up to the technology yet. Nothing here seemed to enhance on print or traditional digital reading in any meaningful way. Still, I remain intrigued by the possibilities and will likely read another article in the future. The stories are excellent. Ultimately that's all that matters in reading anyway.
review 2: A short, bizarre little book, about a very bizarre adventure by a bizarre man obsessed with an idea to the exclusion of virtually everything else. Ironically, he succeeded in becoming the first and only person to ever circumnavigate the globe on land and sea in the same vehicle. This vehicle he was so enamored of was a discard of the army, an amphibious jeep that proved so useless it was abandoned and production canceled. Ben Carlin and his girl-friend, Elinore, were sure that a voyage around the world in this odd contraption would bring them riches and fame. It did nothing of the kind, but you have to admire Ben's single-minded compulsion despite numerous brushes with calamity he slogged on. Elinore finally gave up on the hardships (the cabin when traveling through the warmer countries would reach 170 degrees melting plastic items.) She abandoned Ben after several years of hardship and a marriage of constant bickering. "Finally, on May 13, 1958—seven years and 10 months after he set out across the Atlantic—Ben drove west toward Montreal, where he and Elinore had stopped in 1948. He was older now, 45, gray in the beard, and heavier. Over the past decade, Ben had traveled 39,000 miles over land and 11,000 miles over water. He had crossed four oceans and five continents to become the only person in history to circumnavigate the globe by both land and sea in the same vehicle—a distinction he still holds" less

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