What a combination. Tales from the venerable Explorer’s Club and George Plimpton ( if you have not yet read, “The Bogey Man,” you have not truly laughed up your guts.)
The Explorer’s Club in Manhattan is a very tony club.
Established at the turn of the last century by well-heeled voyagers, it has maintained a plethora of brilliantly experienced members. Naturalists, photographers, scientists, bon-vivants and more. At dinners the members regale one another with stories of their exploits.
I knew this book would be packed with the interesting, the pompous, and the breathtaking. Out of the 51 tales, many made a large impression, but I’ll mention only a few so you can peruse them all and still have surprises.
In The Lady and the Coelacanth, we meet the woman who identified the supposedly extinct 400 million-year-old fish caught in the 50’s off of the South African coast and brought it to the attention of the world.
Martin and Osa Johnson (read I Married Adventure for another wonderful account of their lives) celebrates the itinerant lives of the famed photographer/explorers in their African forays.
The Last Resort : Cannibalism in the Arctic depicts the horrific necessities one may have to undertake to stay alive when faced with life-threatening starvation in the Arctic. Friends for dinner becomes a grizzly unavoidability.
Woman, You Are A Beast paints a vivid picture of the life of a Mongolian Housewife. From freezing temperatures to wiping dishes clean on one’s clothes in lieu of washing, it is certainly a grim comparison to one’s own complaints.
Yeti Expedition is a story I would very much like to have heard at the table. Was there sagacious eye-rolling as the existence of BigFoot was supposedly confirmed? I certainly omitted the gruesome genital mutilation descriptions and the throwing of Yaks off cliffs when I shared it with my children in the tub.
Men Who Can’t Come Back is an interesting aside of the people one meets while traveling. It is worth acknowledging that not all explorers do so for self-gratifying purposes or the thrill of travel. Many are in forced or self-imposed exile (with darn good reason.)
There are more and most worth reading. Some are a bit self-congratulatory and long-winded, but luckily they are in the minority.
If we can not all venture off in the great unknown, at least we can read of those who have.