Monday, September 23, 2013

Book review: "I Married Adventure: The Lives of Martin and Osa Johnson"

"I Married Adventure" would be excellent for an adolescent or teenager, and is pretty good for adults, too.

Osa Johnson describes the many adventures of herself and her husband in a "gosh, golly, gee whiz" fashion. In some ways, it seems like an old movie with, say, Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in the starring roles.

While Osa Johnson does well describing their amazing trips, her weakness is in describing people. Many of the characters in this book come across only as caricatures the crusty sea captain, the gentlemanly British national living in Kenya, the faithful-but-slightly-comical African servant. This isn't a book where you get inside the heads of people.

Still the Johnsons had remarkable adventures, and since any one of the trips probably could have been a book in itself, you'll likely be left wishing for more details. Also, the book offers an interesting historical perspective on a period (not that long ago) when the world still had many mysterious places to be explored.

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