Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Heyerdahl, Thor - Alfred Stanford

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ALFRED STANFORD

It is the deep connection with nature and a tremendous simplicity that makes ["Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft"] great as few books of our time are great…. [It has quickly spread through the world] with the speed of a small classic being born and the suggestion that it contains a strong medicine for modern man.

The book records the straight-forward chronicle of a 4,300-mile passage across the Pacific by six naked men on a raft. Its pages reflect a minimum of philosophical overtones. But on every page there is a perceptiveness of the sea and the sky that has delicacy and sureness. Through it all runs the awareness that ancient man ventured here before….

It is in the record of daily life, so close to the water as to be virtually a part of it for the 101 days of the passage, that the best writing occurs. (p. 1)

There is no mention of monotony or boredom. Every day was full of its own events, the sky, the stars, the marine...

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1. Introduction
2. Alfred Stanford
3. Harry Gilroy
4. Roland Sawyer
5. Wendell C. Bennett
6. Kent Bush
7. The Times Literary Supplement
8. Glyn Daniel
9. John M. Connole
10. Philip Morrison
11. Christopher Wordsworth
12. The Times Literary Supplement
13. Geoffrey Bibby
14. Timothy Severin
15. Philip Snow
16. Frederick H. Guidry
17. Robert Trumbull
18. Adrienne Kaeppler
19. Jo-Ann D. Suleiman
20. Toba Korenblum
21. John Hemming
22. Copyright