Full Circle: A Pacific Journey with Michael Palin - Softcover

Palin, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0563551070 ISBN 13: 9780563551072

Publisher: BBC Books, 1999

Synopsis

In this account of the third of Michael Palin's travel adventures for BBC Television, he journeys for almost a year, covering 50,000 miles and all of the 18 countries that border the Pacific Ocean, encompassing a wide diversity of landscape, culture and people. The Pacific Rim is one of the world's most volatile areas, with economies that are expanding faster than anywhere else on earth - and here the earth itself is in a constant state of flux. Not for nothing is the Pacific coastline known as the "Ring of Fire" - volcanoes mark Palin's journey like stepping stones, and he climbs one which has recently erupted and is still smoking. He negotiates mountains and plunging gorges, crosses glaciers, dodges icebergs, follows great rivers such as the Yangtse and the Amazon, and confronts the notorious Cape Horn and the wild and windswept beaches of western Alaska. The people Palin meets include one of the few remaining survivors of a Siberian Gulag camp, head-hunters in Borneo, and Japanese monks. He eats maggots in Mexico, rustles camels in the Australian desert, lands a plane in Seattle, and sings with the Pacific Fleet choir in Vladivostock.

About this title

Review

Having gone round the world and down the poles in Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole, it seems fitting that Michael Palin should complete his travel odyssey for the BBC by completing Full Circle, the book which describes his journey through the 18 countries which border the Pacific Rim, and which make a rough circle of 11,000 miles in diameter. The result is a journey which, even by Palin's standards, is truly epic.

Pole to Pole represents what is probably Palin's most ambitious piece of travel writing to date, as he gradually begins to piece together a common Pacific culture, as he travels through Russia, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Australia and South America. Often the sheer scope of the journey becomes overwhelming and slightly impressionistic, but as ever Palin's wit and wonder at his discoveries and encounters is unflagging, from the wonders of the ancient civilisations of Asia to the startling modernity and squalor of Latin America. It's all enough to turn you into a Buddhist, and, in Full Circle, Palin comes as close to conversion as it's possible for an old Python. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description

Michael Palin's terrific account of his journey through 18 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean, published by Phoenix for the first time.

Edition details

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0563551070
• ISBN 13: 9780563551072
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320