Lyn Drummond

Official review- 5 Stars,  May 22, 2023

Helen Akoth, official reviewer on OnlineBookClub.org

”I highly recommend this book to fans of travelogues. Readers who like informative memoirs with thought-provoking, philosophical topics will also love it.

The places visited spread across Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia, among others. Where applicable, the author discussed renowned painters, philosophers, scientists, and poets who lived or left footprints in those areas she visited while she simultaneously analyzed their works.

She also comes up with thought-provoking commentaries on various issues, such as conservation, spirituality, the problems refugees face when seeking asylum, and age-based discrimination in the job market.

This book also follows the author’s journey towards individuation, a theory developed by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist. I immensely enjoyed reading this, as there were several things to learn from the author’s travels and life.

First, I liked that the topics were chronological and well-arranged, starting from the events that happened in 2011 onwards. This makes them easy to follow. Second, the book’s chapters were short and engrossing, devoid of unnecessary details. This helped maintain my concentration and enjoyment from the start until the end. Third, I liked that the author included her photographs of the places she visited. This not only broke the monotony of written text but also enhanced the credibility of the story being told. And lastly, I liked that the book also has a bibliography at the end of the book, and if needed, readers can explore the concepts discussed further.

What I liked most was how the author captivatingly captured the places she visited. Some of the places discussed are famous destinations listed among the UNESCO World Heritage sites, and this book can act as a great inspiration to explore them. Readers who love traveling and adventure will find the details informative.”

Synopsis

Unlike Lyn Drummond’s previous book, Where To Go For a Seven-year Cycle, which mainly focused on her travels from 2003 to 2010 in Central and Eastern Europe, this companion covering the years 2011 to 2018 highlights more random locations. Painters, Philosophers and Poets Sustain a Seven-year Cycle tells stories of how she shared her footprint with the ghosts of famous people who coincidentally lived in the same places as she did, often eras apart from one another. The books’ titles are based on philosophical views that seven years of our lives represent a particular cycle.

Follow the author’s journeys from the bleak reality of war crime trials at The Hague’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to the cobbled charm of Arles, the French city where the Dutch painter Van Gogh flourished. To places as diverse as Vietnam and Ecuador, North Macedonia and Louisiana, the Netherlands and Hungary. Uncovering facts hitherto unknown to her about historic figures such as Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, Albert Einstein, Ho Chi Minh, Alexander the Great, Mata Hari, the last Creole plantation owner, Laura Locoul Gore, and the Hungarian pioneer of Covid-19 vaccines, Dr Katalin Karikó.

What she learned from some of the people in this book affected her own perspectives. For example, researching the work of seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who lived near her home in The Hague, resulted in scrutiny of her own beliefs about religion, nature and spirituality. Searching for reasons why Paul Cézanne was so enamoured with Mont Sainte-Victoire, which overlooks the artist’s home city of Aix-en-Provence, triggered strong reactions to compelling landscapes. The book probes the influence American poet Robert Frost had on Edward Thomas, the British poet, essayist and novelist who wrote a poem that struck an evocative chord with a nation on the brink of World War I.

This second memoir delves further into the author’s quest to achieve individuation, a term often associated with Carl Jung and his psychology. Jung believed individuation – a deep understanding of oneself – answers the question of who we really are beneath our responsibilities and social roles, once we face up to our hidden secrets and make peace with our darkest corners. Daring to be ourselves no matter how different we are from others.