Tracks

Book Review: Tracks by Robyn Davidson

This book, although written in the 80s, gained new popularity when it was adapted into a movie starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver. I thought it sounded great — an Aussie woman, trekking with only her camels and dog from Alice Springs to the Western Australian coast, via the harsh Aussie desert. And it probably would have been great, if not for Robyn Davidson.

Davidson is completely and utterly unlikeable. She’s contrary, selfish, judgmental, egotistical and opinionated. I spent most of the book pretty much just being cranky with her. Examples, you ask?

She expects everything for free. She’s going to get wild camels and train them so she doesn’t have to pay. She’s mad when the local caravan park want to charge her for a site. She’s mad when the pub wants to take meals and board out of her wages. She’s mad when the camel guy won’t teach her all about camels for free. The list goes on. Meanwhile, she sells her story to National Geographic.

Davidson doesn’t like many people. She claims everyone in Australia (other than her, obviously) is racist. All men are drunks, sexist and want to rape her (wtf). On that last point, there’s a couple of incidents early in the book that make zero sense. I seriously think she imagined half the stuff she apparently endured when it came to the local men.

Her most loathed group of peoples on earth, however, are tourists. Not just the couple of bad apples, all of them. She doesn’t want to let them take photos of her or her camels. She doesn’t even want talk to them. Ever. They’re ruining Australia. They have no affinity with the land like she has. Yes, she is doing wonders for Australia by grabbing a couple of feral camels and going for a walk and raising money for charity and… Wait a minute.

Davidson didn’t go on the trip to raise money. She didn’t go on the trip because she lost someone close to her and it was their suggestion. She didn’t go on the trip because she wanted to photograph or map the land. She didn’t even go on the trip to highlight any particular cause. No, she went on the trip because she took some drugs one night and whilst hallucinating, she kept thinking the word ‘desert’ over and over again. Isn’t this how we all make our major life choices?

If I ignore Davidson’s personality, the book doesn’t even offer me much. There’s no real messages which made me look at life differently. The descriptions of the Australian landscape are nothing special (pretty much just lots of mentions of mulga and spinifex and cockatoos). Actually, the one thing I will take away from this book is how mistreated camels are. I’ll probably never look at a camel train again and not imagine them being hobbled and beaten and having holes shoved in their faces to run a rope through.

I did finish the book; probably because it’s quite short. I can see that it might have made a good movie (no, I haven’t seen it). I’m sure they might have changed a few things. At least offered us some sort of purpose for the trip. I wouldn’t recommend this book, however. 1 ½ out of 5