Reviews for Globetrotter Islands Guide Iceland

The average rating for Globetrotter Islands Guide Iceland based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-12-07 00:00:00 Michael Mueller Having read all of Joanna Kavenna's novels, which show that she is a very versatile writer, I was keen to read her first published book. This is a very personal and idiosyncratic mixture of memoir, travelogue and history, in which she explores the idea of Thule and what it meant to various people through history, ever since Pytheas first described it to his ancient Greek audience. Her travels take her from the Shetlands to Iceland, northern Norway, Estonia, Greenland and eventually Svalbard (a.k.a. Spitsbergen). On her journey she is accompanied by reflections on those who have preceded her - Pytheas, Columbus, Nansen and Burton among them, but some of her most interesting encounters are less obvious, for example an meeting with the former Estonian President Lennart Meri, whose theory was that some of what Pytheas described may have been folk memories of an major meteorite strike in Estonia a few hundred years earlier, tuli being the local word for fire. I found it quite an interesting read, but a little frustrating in that she covers so much ground that at times it becomes a little difficult to see the thematic unity.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-19 00:00:00 John Holmes Hmmmm. I really thought I would eat this up, despite the mediocre reviews I kept seeing for it. It has all the elements that usually entrance me--travel, the Arctic, mystery, ancient history, a gorgeous cover (I know, I know, you're not supposed to judge)--and yet somehow it still all fell flat. Part of the problem for me was that I couldn't quite figure out what Kavenna was trying to do here. The title implies a sort of research journey into the origins and location of Thule, but while Kavenna has clearly done a whole lot of reading on the subject, the way she goes about telling us about it feels flat and regurgitated and somewhat repetitious, and during her actual travels, she seems to mostly just wander around asking random people about Thule rather than talking to historians or other people who might have actually studied it. It seemed weird to me. The descriptions of places I'm normally fascinated with also just...lacked magic. Though Kavenna repeatedly talked about her enthusiasm for these places and for the mystery behind Thule, I could never actually feel that enthusiasm. It was like she wrote this entire book completely without emotion. In the end, perhaps her writing style just didn't work for me, I don't know. I really wanted to love this. And I actually am really interested in the history of Thule. But I feel like I'd be better served finding some other book on the subject, because this one just seemed...too scattered.