Odysseys: Meditations and Thoughts for a Life's Journey

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

Odysseys is a deeply moving and very beautiful collection of color
photographs and short meditative essays celebrating the desert mining
towns along the Atlantic coast of southern Namibia. As Freeman Patterson
explains in his introduction, the towns were built by German settlers in
the early days of the 20th century, and abandoned when the then
economically exploitable deposits of diamonds were exhausted in the
1930s and early 1940s.

Living in this arid land was difficult and costly. The mine workers,
managers, and their families took most of their belongings and
furnishings with them, but what they left behind in tiny settlements
like Bogenfels, Pomona, Elizabeth Bay, and Kolmanskop was enough to
enable Patterson to imagine their lives.

His photographic portrait features some 50 full-page photographs and
accompanying text in 11 short chapters, with such titles as
“Metamorphoses,” “Out of the Rubble,” “Nature and Human
Nature,” “Cracks in the Walls,” and “Mortal Remains.” The
photos’ muted colors, abandoned rooms, and doorless doorways evoke a
poetic reflection on human nature and destiny.

Freeman Patterson is an impressive thinker, a fine writer, and a master
photographer. Odysseys is one of his best books to date.