All great books are meant to take
us on an adventure, to places unknown, with people unknown, to a world unknown;
Everett Gee Jackson does just this in his book Four Trips To Antiquity.
Although an artist by trade, Jackson manages to immerse us in the ruined
lands of old: Chichicastenango and
Copan. These are lands of such fruitful
history and Jackson manages to bring to life societies long since dead.
His true accounts and experiences
pull us deep into a land of imagery and culture, wrapping our brains in hand
drawn pictures of images we hardly knew existed; always urging us to grasp for
more, want for more, beg for information that only his experiences could
provide to us. He adapts customs and
traditions, held so dearly by certain people of the world, into words and
images that we can understand through our senses.
Jackson provides image after image
of statues, idols, monuments, caressing our minds, and beckoning us to follow him
on an adventure through these exotic lands.
He is our tour guide, telling us when and where to step while recounting
his own tales, and inviting us along for the ride. His visual aids are our stepping-stones from
this land to the very one he is enthusiastically describing to us and we have
no choice but to jump in beside him.
His words ruminate in our brains as
images flash by, pushing us further along on our voyage to a land we never even
knew we wanted to visit:
Chichicastenango, to Copan. We are
children again, as we adventure by his side, thrust into adventure after
adventure, each one causing a deep craving in us. A craving for more, more knowledge, more
visual imagery, more history, more adventure.
With each new stepping-stone,
Jackson thrusts us forward, toward beauty, toward the beautiful oblivion that
only a true adventure can provide to us.
As we turn each page in a feverish rush, we see through Jackson’s eyes,
the beauty of what once was but is no more.
These lands which now lay in ruin, are reimagined by Jackson for our own
amusement.
Jackson
takes us back to a time and places where certain things mattered more, others
mattered less, but one can finish reading his book and be certain that the time
and place we have just visited is not our own.
We must thank him for that, for without him, we never would have made it
there and back again, to this land so alien to us.
For information about Popol Vuh (Jackson’s reason for
adventuring) look no further:
Interested in an adventure of your own?:
You can find your own adventure with Everett here:
