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Passage to Juneau A Sea and Its Meanings Jonathan Raban 9780679776147 Books

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Passage to Juneau A Sea and Its Meanings Jonathan Raban 9780679776147 Books

Raban weaves together several parallel life passages while sailing from Seattle to Alaska: his own solo voyage, long-past explorers of the Pacific Northwest, his father's death, and the barely-noticed unraveling of his marriage. Some dangers lurk forever deep underwater; others appear spontaneously floating on the surface. Life, like sailing, is complicated, unknowable, sometimes ominous. There's a lot of history bound up in the sailing metaphor: Raban's own as well as Captain Vancouver's and his family's. Some is objectively third-person; much is deeply personal. Not every reader will want to get on board with such an introspective observer, but it's a very well-written account of one man's journey.


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Passage to Juneau A Sea and Its Meanings Jonathan Raban 9780679776147 Books Reviews

Rabin is a wordsmith. I’ll give him that. But this book just didn’t do it for me. The storyline is a lot like the waters between Seattle and Juneau, there’s a lot of offshoots and most of them go nowhere. The author comes across as a Seattle elitist. Sails to a fishing and logging towns and makes fun of their way of life. This book was a chore for me. I only finished it because I paid for it.
This is THE book to read if you plan to spend time on the waters around Seattle, Vancouver, the San Juans and the Inside Passage. The author shares his sailing experiences and, if you pay attention and you are a sailor, you will not have to experience a tragedy involving tides, winds, obstructions, sunken logs, large shipping, and more. The book brings to life the explorations of George Vancouver and his crew along with other early explorers and traders who plied these shores. Several areas of interest are set forth in parallel and in the form of flashbacks. For example, as the author sails the various channels and sounds along the Inside Passage and Puget Sound, he reflects upon what George Vancouver might have seen when he passed there over 200 years before. At the same time, he discusses what early Indians saw and how they related to the sea and how modern day Indians are faring. He delves into Indian art and how the Indians might have drawn artistic inspiration from wave borne reflections. Raban shares his encounters with some of the very interesting characters who inhabit the coastal waters and harbors. He even goes into the changes in the economy in the regions through which he passes. And, on top of all this, he brings you into his personal world where he sails a more stormy sea, the sea of the death of his father, his retracing his life in England and - to top it all off - the rough tides of marital issues. First, I read this book on loan from the public library and then I had to add it to my personal library. Raban introduces some authors I had not read and he enlarged my reading experience for which I thank him. He even caused me to visit Munro's bookstore in Victoria, BC. This book augmented my own voyage up the Inside Passage. I also gave it as a gift to a friend in Seattle who - like Raban - is an avid yachtsman. You will benefit by this book if you take it with you when you visit the region. A masterpiece.
Jonathan Raban is, for my money, among the best of our contemporary travel writers, standing shoulder to shoulder with Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson, and Passage to Juneau only reinforces that opinion. I first read this book in 1999, when it was published, because I was looking forward to a sailing trip through the Inside Passage from Seattle to Southeastern Alaska. Then I read it again just recently because I am again looking forward to this trip.

Like most of Raban's books, Passage to Juneau, is written in two layers. The first is an account of his preparations and execution of a solo sailing trip from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska. The second level is an entertaining and well-researched historical account of the travels and travails of Capt. George Vancouver aboard HMS Discovery during his four-year exploration of the northwest coast of North America.

But it isn't really a story about a routine sailing adventure similar to that undertaken by dozens of boats every sailing season, is it. It is a poignant story of a successful writer who in late middle age looses first his father (to cancer) and then his wife (to neglect and absence of common focus) and is left alone facing old age in disconsolate apprehension and confusion. The reader is given an early clue to the direction the book is about to take when Raban, early on in his voyage, meets a married couple who seem to cling to each other like the two sides of a Velcro patch and makes the mildly derisive comment, "some people are more married that others," leaving us with the feeling that he isn't very married at all. This is reinforced throughout the book by his obsessive preparations for a planned visit by his young daughter, where he is looking forward to showing her the bears, with only passing mention that his wife will be coming along also.

Raban is an excellent writer who doesn't hesitate to bare his soul to the reader and does it with a refreshing lack of maudlinly and only a trace of sentimentality. He records his varying responses to his surrounding with an honest and only slightly judgmental way that lets the reader understands what is going on without feeling the need to interfere or change things. This interested-but-detached view is particularly apparent in his interactions with the members of the First Nations tribes he encounters, and in his slightly cynical take on the ceremonies he is invited to attend. It is like he is letting the reader share his view of the world through one of the portholes in his boat.

Passage to Juneau is a recommended read for anyone interested in maritime history, for present-day sailors traveling on sailboats, and to anyone wanting a poignant yet free-from-moralizing story about the personal passage of a late-middle-aged man facing an uncertain future.
Raban weaves together several parallel life passages while sailing from Seattle to Alaska his own solo voyage, long-past explorers of the Pacific Northwest, his father's death, and the barely-noticed unraveling of his marriage. Some dangers lurk forever deep underwater; others appear spontaneously floating on the surface. Life, like sailing, is complicated, unknowable, sometimes ominous. There's a lot of history bound up in the sailing metaphor Raban's own as well as Captain Vancouver's and his family's. Some is objectively third-person; much is deeply personal. Not every reader will want to get on board with such an introspective observer, but it's a very well-written account of one man's journey.