IN WHICH A LAND ROVER SEES THE LAND NORTH OF THE WALL:
Having throughly explored the mystical realms of South America, the Bell Family and their Land Rover Mufata have taken the risky gamble at seeking adventure north of the border, venturing into a forbidding land of fast food and suicidal big game animals that are tasty with garlic….
*insert Star Wars Credit theme and camera scrolls down to view a small vehicle that is vaguely remiscent of a pickup truck and a jeep sitting in a walmart parking lot.*
HA! There is a start to the Movie, that hopefully will one day be made. If not by themselves, someone else. This is an adventure movie, a documentary, a human experience thing that will transcend and translate to the next generations…assuming there are any left in 20 years….
Right now, I am being ridiculous, if only because I am wracked with exhaustion, hunger, frustration and a general depressed malaise in the direction of, well, lots. Being ridiculous is a way to cure that for a while.
So is reading a good book. And that brings us to the topic of this rambling madness… a book.
Book 3, you may ask? Why yes, yes it is. The book is called ‘La Lucha!’ (which my spellcheck will hate forever), and it is the 3rd book from a gentleman explorer by the name of Graeme Bell, his lovely Copilot, navigator and boss/wife Luisa, and his two trusted heirs to the Overlanding throne, Keelan and Jessica. “La Lucha!” is the third book that the Bell family has created themselves, chronicling their various adventures on the road. The other two books, “We Will Be Free” and “Travel The Planet Overland”, have also been reviewed by myself and whatever pint of ale, porter or tumbler of whiskey was on my desk that night (both can be found on this blog).
To give a recap, very quick refresher of this story, allow me to spend an insultingly short time describing to you the story laid before you.
The Bell Family are from South Africa, and who decided one day after touring around a chunk of Africa, to pack their most precious belongings into storage, Selling/trading/burning the rest, sold their business, their two or three other cars, and stuff their young children into the back of a Land Rover Defender 130 4door pickup to go travel and live a little. They decided to start in South Africa, and then jet almost immediately to some place called South America, which I have heard is not close to one another, and started to do this “over landing” thing that people have started to do.
They have been at it near 6 years now….. If you would like to know more, you can find this epic saga of danger, intrigue and the demise of a great many beers in their book “We Will Be Free”. This and their other book “Travel The Planet Overland” can be found on their website that I will do my damnest to remember to put at the bottom of the page.
The third book by Graeme is “La Lucha!”, which is Spanish for “The Fight!”, which, if you ask me, is perfect. It sits with me as a fantastic name for the third installment of an epic story, but you can draw your own conclusions about the title as you will. However, it has come about like a great many movies as of late, and has been released in an out of order timeline. It should be “We Will Be Free”, “La Lucha” and then “Travel The Planet Overland”, because “La Lucha” picks up where “We Will Be Free” left off.
But who cares? The Third book is done! I have actually been waiting on this a while. I loved the first one, I loved the second before it even came out and threw money at the Kickstarter campaign to fund it, and did the same for this one. I have been waiting.
The paper book, however, is not here yet. I read this on my tablet….which I hated. The book is amazing, but I never have become used to reading long amounts of text while on a tablet. The Ebook I was sent when all was released I’m pretty sure is the exact thing they sent to the publisher, which has resulted in a layout that I am not a fan of….perhaps though, and most likely the reality, I would rather hold the book in one hand, my whiskey in the other and unplug from the tech for a while…. That is why I have to say that I did not enjoy it as much as I will when my actually paper and ink version arrives. Nothing against Graeme and Fam, Everything to do with the technology I read it on.
That and I have a pretty good fighter plane game on my IPad and I found myself distracted by it for a long while which interrupted my reading….
Back to the Book. What can I say? It’s fantastic. And in this day and age, I think it is a must read for every person who thinks they are happy here in the US, mostly because it gives an insight into how people who are not Americans sees us, how they see our country, our stuff, our cities, etc, but also because of who the Bells are. Graeme and Luisa and their children are not rich. Not rich, have to stick to a budget, the like. This gives them the unique sight into recognizing and seeing the reality in the US that most tourists and visitors do not see. They can see past the pretty people, the flashy cars, The Beverly Hills houses, and see the real grit that is probably 70% of this country: the people in their day to day. This book is not only a chronicle of their journey, it is their observation of we Americans as a people. It is a Journal of an explorer in a foreign land and I think it is amazing to see the United States via their eyes. It’s pretty damn spectacular in that regard. Especially when you see that they have the awareness to look for what they were taught or have seen America represented as. A number of times in the book, Graeme points it out that America is “nothing like you see on tv.” Which is a common sense truth, I suppose? But one that Americans can’t seem to recognize because we are so caught up in our image we only see what we want to… or something.
Once again, though, Graeme delivers a hilarious, living and breathing narrative. This is not a law document or medical paper. The grammar is regular people sort of grammar. The book has tangents, there are places where you can see that while Graeme speaks and writes in English, he is not writing in ‘Murican. Thank the gods for that. He shares quite a few dreams and rambling fantasies that I can totally identify with. The cabin in the sticks, Graeme, all the yes.
His writing, like the first two books, is full of color. You know this is real because you can’t make it up without it sounding made up. It’s a thin line there, but its that deep down feeling that you cant shake: If you read Graeme’s work, and the same sort of thing written by someone for a fiction, you would be able to tell….don’t know how, but you would know. Perhaps just enunciation of certain things or, if you have heard Graeme on one of the podcasts they have been on, you read the book in his voice, and then you know it cant be made up by just how the words….carry. This may only make sense to me.
I will say that “La Lucha” is a bit more riveting than “We Will Be Free”. Perhaps that is because “We Will Be Free” is still a story that is…more innocent? It’s still just an adventure, with pitfalls, yes, but an adventure…its not as serious. “La Lucha” is truly a fight. I suppose you can see this book is a little more “grown up”…. I may be projecting here a bit…perhaps it’s the politics….
Yes…if there is one thing I am not a fan of, it’s the politics that Graeme has in the books. Mostly because my opinion of Trump and the current government system is that it all needs lit on fire….we don’t need to let the politicians out of their buildings, you know…. Ugh. Politics…
BUT, I will say that it is interesting to see how a foreigner saw the political shift from Obama to the fuckshit twat that is Trump. How many visitors would be so observant? Probably not too many.
Fuck Politics.
Still, aside from my own personal “Blech” on the political front, the book is amazing. It’s hilarious, it’s grueling, it’s frustrating, it’s hopeful, it’s baffling, and it’s beautiful. Luisa, I must say, is once again the Valkierye that keeps Graeme in line…ish. I envision this is done with a spatula. A teflon safe one. Don’t ask why because I don’t really know. Luisa, love ya, it’s all just great. I am damn sure that Jessica, who is not so wee any more, is the real life incarnation of Dr Doolittle, and when that movie is rebooted, she can play the lead. Keelan is a walking tool box in respect to what he is capable of doing for himself, for others, and with everything in front of him. We Left-Handers are like that: Awesome. And any who want to argue that, go talk to Keelan. If his father’s descriptions are at all real, the boy could flip a Buick and leave.
And Graeme is the story teller…the chronicler, the old man around the fire lecturing about the “Before Times”, 20 years from now after Trump gets the world nuked.
And if there is anything the Bell’s are good at, Its leaving you hanging on the last word. You know another book is coming (He does give an excerpt, but that isn’t the point), because the story is too good to not continue. To stop writing now would be like the cancelling of Firefly, and the souls of all of Jessica’s stray pets would be crushed. Can’t have that happen!
So I will keep my eyebones open for the next story. Bring it on.
The Bell Family and their adventure can be followed at
http://www.a2aexpedition.com/
on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/a2a.expedition/
And Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/graeme.r.bell/
Prior Reviews of the Bell Books.
Original “We Will Be Free” review by some guy (maybe me)
http://aggrotread.blogspot.com/2016/04/in-which-book-is-reviewed-badly.html
“Travel The Planet Overland”. http://aggrotread.blogspot.com/2016/11/another-book-review-shenanigans-i-say.html
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